This year NMT extended our established Summer STEM mini courses to include off site in person camps in Santa Fe and Espanola, NM. The camps were well attended and appreciated by the students in the program.  The expansion of Summer STEM mini courses to include off site classes was achieved through a partnership with STEM Santa FE.

The Mechanical Engineering department played a major role in organizing and providing these STEM course opportunities to northern New Mexico high school scholars.  In our initial year of the program, tech offered three summer classes for rising 9th through 12th graders. These classes included an introduction to chemical sensors held at Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) and an introduction to drones; held at both SFCC and Northern New Mexico Community College (NNMCC). Students who attended these classes were given the opportunity to study and learn from a NMT professor which earned them one NMT college credit.

            The Building and Flying Drones class, taught by Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian, introduced students to the basics and challenges of designing air and marine drones. Students participated in the design process by using CAD modeling and simulations. The course culminated in the students building a “small fixed-wing micro air vehicle” of their own design (Team Drone Website). This course was offered at both SFCC and NNMCC and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students involved.

            Making a Miniaturized Chemical Sensor, was taught by NMT professor, Dr. Menake Piyasena and also received amazing feedback. This class taught students the relationships between chemistry and many other scientific fields and disciplines. The capstone project of this class involved the students creating a miniature chemical sensor with the ability to sense particular bio-molecules.

            NMT hopes this model of offering both on campus and regional STEM mini courses will make NMT accesible to a wider range of students across NM.  If you are interested in NMT partnering with your organization to offer regional mini courses please see our list of past course offering (2021 STEM Mini Courses) and contact our Director of Admissions for more information.