Beginning next year, St. Louis U. High will offer a new engineering class, Foundations of Engineering, in the Innovation Lab, which will be made available to upperclassmen as an elective. The class will be unique in that it will offer a predominantly hands-on learning experience, ensuring an outlet for STEM-minded students.

The class will be centered around three main projects that students will work in groups to complete. The projects, which include building a robot, rocketry, and building a bridge, cover a wide variety of engineering fields using STEM.

“It’s going to really lay the groundwork for all sorts of different fields of engineering that hopefully will just spark some interest, and then you can go from there,” said math teacher Craig Hinders, who will be teaching the course.

There will only be one class of 20 students per semester, starting next year. The class will be co-taught by Hinders and science teacher Robyn Wellen.

“So there's some restrictions on space and safety, because we can't have 30 people down in this space, all using various tools without having some safety issues,” said Hinders. “So this first year we’re thinking because we’re going to be co-teaching that it would be capped at around 20 in a section.”

Each day in class may vary, depending on whether some things need to be taught or whether the students will work on their projects.

“It would really be different for each group just depending on where you're at and what your capabilities are. So you come in, and you get to work, and you'd be checking in with Mr. Hinders and myself, and we make sure that you're staying on track,” said Wellen.

The class will largely be hands-on, with the teachers coaching the students and helping them work through problems.

“You would come in and your team would get together. What are the things that guys need to accomplish to get to this particular ending date?” said Wellen.

Students have been excited about the class ever since the rumors started.

“I think just the fact that it's something new, because we haven't really had a new option for something like a science in three years basically. So we finally get to choose an actual class that we may be interested in rather than just being forced into physics, bio, or chem, and it's engineering so I would say I'm definitely hoping to be a little bit more hands on and more engaged than maybe some of my other classes,” said junior Matt Kolnik.

In addition to Hinders and Wellen, iLab Director Jeff Schaefer will be helping students out as they work on their projects.

”I’ll serve more of a facilitator role, unless it’s some facet that we might need some more expertise on a particular tool or a piece of equipment,” said Schaefer. “I’ll be more of a support role that’s making sure that the class is able to run as intended and desired in terms of project preparedness, tool preparedness, and helping students get the training if they can’t get it done in class.”

Unfortunately for the freshmen and incoming Class of 2027, this course won’t be offered for them next year. However, sophomores and juniors can look forward to taking the class next year.

“The only prerequisite that we were thinking of was possibly having geometry, because when we have bridge building and some of the robotic stuff, it might help to have some experience with trigonometry,” said Hinders.

Because of the requirement of having geometry, freshmen and sophomores will not have an opportunity to take the class in its inaugural year; however, Hinders hopes that interested underclassmen will take the opportunity to immerse themselves in other experiences in order to be better prepared for taking engineering in later years.

“Maybe sophomore year, they could take program electronics where they do some more programming, and then from there they can move on to our cohorts,” said Hinders.

All three faculty members teaching the class are excited to interact with and help students learn as they discover something no student has at SLUH before.

“I love seeing the creative process happen and I love seeing the light bulb turn on for students,” said Schaefer.