“When Near Space Launch got a grant to do the Dream Big project, they reached out to me to see if UToledo would want to participate,” Dr. Czajkowski explained. “I said yes.”
The year-long project exemplifies modern workforce development by engaging students at multiple educational levels in authentic scientific research and engineering design. University students worked alongside high school teams, with educators serving as team leads and Dr. Czajkowski providing overall supervision.
The University of Toledo team includes: Kali Whitaker, Olawale Oluwafemi (project manager), Md. Faisal Karim (PCB and instrumentation design lead), Elizabeth White, Bethany Boehler, Kazi Kabir, Stephen Yankera, Yusuf Tayo, Cody Graves, Hossain Idrish, Derek Chambers, Pramila Paudyal, Dhananji Karunarathna, Hema Nimmagadda, and Eve Corlett.
High school participation included students from Toledo Technology Academy (teacher Laura Kubiak with students Kei Frey, Alex Marino, Jackson Huise, and Logan Oster), Crestwood High School (teacher Diana Johns with students Hala Komaiha, Noor El Fadl, Maryan Farhat, and Mohammed Ali AlSabeh), and Stockbridge High School (teacher Robert Richards with students Brock Rochow, Jack Hammerberg, and Timothy Handshoe).
“The students did the majority of the coding and designing,” noted the project team, emphasizing the hands-on learning that builds workforce skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.