Schools

Partners for Progress Honors Students for Science, Technology Accomplishment

STEM breakfast speakers emphasize importance of science, technology, engineering, math studies.

A robot affectionately called “Chum Chucker” spit out soccer balls, surrounded by the orange-shirted River City Robots team that created it.

Nearby, younger students in the First Lego League knelt on the floor worked remotes controlling smaller robots that cruised the floor at Old Hickory Golf Course Country Club in St. Peters.

“We get an assignment and then we have six weeks to build it,” said Elizabeth Stearns, a senior and a home-schooled student from St. Charles who participates in the robotics program.

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The team participates in international competitions. Chum Chucker was last year’s entry in the competition.

But the robot display was just an appetizer for those at the Partners for Progress of Greater St. Charles’ STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) breakfast Friday morning. Partners for Progress honored 11 of the area’s leading high school students for their involvement in STEM-related activities and classes.

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The students honored were:

  • Haelena Schwemmer, Barat Academy
  • Michael Groene, Duchesne High School
  • Allison Gugla, Fort Zumwalt East
  • Saahil Sheth, Fort Zumwalt West
  • Sara Shell, Francis Howell
  • Matt Kimmel, Lutheran High School
  • Zach Burgdorf, Lutheran High School
  • Alyssa Standeven, Orchard Farm
  • Nick Miller, St. Dominic
  • Levi Knipmeyer, Wentzville Holt
  • Angela Deters, Wentzville Timberland

“It’s nice to be recognized and to know all these amazing people my age have done all these accomplishments,” said Standeven, of St. Charles.

The keynote speaker, Teresa Camp, remembered how building her family’s first color television with her dad sparked her interest in science and technology.

Camp, chief engineer for The Boeing Co.’s defense and government services, later worked on submarine and airplane systems, and mentored under the Boeing’s Phantom Works president.

“You don’t stop learning when you get through high school, you don’t stop learning when you graduate college,” Camp told the crowd.

She started working with young students on robotics programs through the STEM initiative.

“We de-mystify the robot,” she said. “We lift the hood and get kids involved and they realize, ‘Hey, anybody can do this.’”

Meanwhile, the Army is putting robots to work for them in the field in the Middle East, and they help save lives, Camp said.

“We have flying robots soldiers can put in their backpack and deploy in the field to get a sense of the battleground so they don’t have to peak around corners when it’s dangerous,” she said.

Randy Schilling, the Partners for Progress education chairman, said the group focuses on promoting STEM education because it recognizes the need

“Most of the engineers we’re hiring come not from the United States but from Asia,” Schilling said. “There’s a reason for that. China produces eight engineers for every one that we do. But it’s also because they have a focus on science and technology.”

Schilling founded St. Charles Main Street-based  Quilogy, an IT consulting firm that was purchased by Aspect last year.

“We’re bound and determined to buck that trend and see that St. Charles remains a leader in science and technology,” Schilling said.

So, Partners for Progress is focusing on raising students ACT scores to help them get into schools and major in STEM-related degrees and is promoting relationships between businesses and schools.

The group started or promoted the STEM recognition breakfast, the robotics program, Project Lead the Way engineering courses in high schools, and a week-long math camps during the summer, he said.


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