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Right, Dos Pueblos High School student Oriane Mathys, 17, and left, Anjali Daniels, 17, work in the shop at the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy. Photo by Victor Maccharoli.

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DP Engineering Academy gets $1M donation

Money will go toward growing the program; new building

By COLBY FRAZIER — Dec. 18, 2009

When Amir Abo-Shaeer left an engineering job eight years ago to become a teacher, he didn’t expect an increase in his engineering-related workload.

But that’s exactly what happened after he became the director of the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy, which he’s helped build into a nationally recognized program that has become so popular, more students are turned away each year than are accepted.

The days of limited space in the Engineering Academy, however, appear numbered, thanks in large part to a $1 million donation from Virgil Elings, a former physics professor at UC Santa Barbara. The donation, announced yesterday, will go toward the construction of a new 12,000-square-foot building on campus that will house the cramped Engineering Academy, which currently operates in a 900-square-foot space, or about the size of a three-car garage.

“Clearly, there’s a space issue,” Abo-Shaeer said yesterday in a telephone interview. “We’re hoping, with an expansion, we’re going to be able to open this up to a whole lot more students.”

The donation brings the total pot of funds for the project to about $5 million, a sum that includes a $3 million state grant, which Abo-Shaeer spent a recent summer break applying for. But in order to receive the grant, about $3 million in matching money must be raised. Now, only about $1 million shy of the goal, Abo-Shaeer said he’s hopeful the remainder will arrive soon enough to break ground on the new building by this summer.

With a larger building, he said the program could accommodate 400 students, a steep increase over the current 128-strong roster.

But with more space, Abo-Shaeer said the Engineering Academy, which is a four-year course that hinges heavily on physics, computer engineering and engineering, will allow students the chance to participate in large projects earlier in their studies.

As it stands, he said the first three years of the program, while somewhat weighted in application, involve a significant amount of classroom work. Seniors, on the other hand, are cut loose. The academy’s senior squad consistently builds award-winning robots. At an international competition earlier this year in Atlanta, Ga., the Dos Pueblos robot won the award for best design in the world.

But the success of the seniors, Abo-Shaeer said, has convinced him that younger students can start taking on more challenging projects, a goal that has been hindered by lack of space.

The program is “running in complete form but not in an ideal form,” he said. “High school students are building these extremely sophisticated robots their senior year without doing much the first three years.”

Although Abo-Shaeer, who is a Dos Pueblos alumnus, hasn’t had extensive discussions with Elings, he said the philanthropist and scientist visited the academy and met with students.

Abo-Shaeer said he thought Elings, who founded the local company, Digital Instruments, was impressed by the academy’s curriculum.

“I think it resonated with what he had seen in his own life …” Abo-Shaeer said, adding that it meant a lot to him to have Elings take an interest in the program. “He came, took time, took energy to learn about our program and even gave us some tips and advice and saw the value in what we’re doing.”

The Engineering Academy is a rare find. Not only is it a one-of-a-kind program in the Santa Barbara area, but according to Abo-Shaeer few, if any, exist in the state.

The program’s popularity, he said, is evidence that students remain keenly interested in science, physics and engineering, subjects that often aren’t the most popular, especially among females.

During the academy’s first year nearly a decade ago, Abo-Shaeer said only two female students applied for the program. Now, 50 percent of the students are female. In the private sector and college engineering programs, Abo-Shaeer said males regularly make up 80 percent of the rosters.

“Locally, female students now see this as something that they can do as a career path,” he said, calling the equal ratio of male and female students in the academy “unprecedented.”

Abo-Shaeer chalks up the program’s popularity to giving students something meaningful and real to do with the classroom work.

“We’re really giving students meaningful projects,” he said. “We want to make sure students are learning math and physics and science … Then incorporating [those subjects] in a way that’s really exciting for them.”

More information about the Engineering Academy, and the nonprofit organization Abo-Shaeer and his students created to raise money, is at www.dpeaf.org, and www.dpengineering.org. And, yes, Engineering Academy students created the Web sites.

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Awesome : 12/21/2009

I didn't see to many hispanic kids in the program? maybe a little more outreach is needed...

SB Enigineer

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Awesome : 12/21/2009

I didn't see too many hispanic kids in the program? maybe a little more outreach is needed...

SB Engineer

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