Cross-functional, Multi-organizational STEM Camp Partnership: Teaching Technology and Human-Centered Design in a Project-Based Curriculum (Other, Diversity)

Abstract This paper describes a summer STEM camp that was designed and delivered through a strong partnership between an African American vocational program, an engineering university, a professional basketball organization, and a major technology company. The camp was free of charge and provided students with a learning experience that exposed them to cutting edge technology, design thinking, and app development. To develop this camp, the university's STEM center worked cross-functionally with faculty from the Electrical Engineering and the User Experience (UX) programs. The faculty were tasked with creating the camp's curriculum and delivering the instruction. The community and industry partners provided mentors, the student participants (middle and high school students), funding, and camp goals and outcomes. Students were invited from both inner-city and suburban middle and high schools and arrived with a wide range of STEM knowledge, experience, and interest and no prerequisite knowledge was expected or required to participate. The camp's framework was scaffolded by two distinct, but related paths, 1. Engineering and programming and 2. Design thinking and UX. The first path was dedicated to teaching students basic programming, engineering concepts, and exposing them to emerging technologies. The second path led students through a Design Sprint to learn a human-centered approach to designing technology with the outcome being an interactive prototype of a solution to a real-world problem provided by the basketball team. In addition to learning, students were provided a behind the scenes tour of the basketball arena and traveled to the technology company's research and development facility. During these visits, students learned more about project stakeholders, were exposed to career opportunities within a large organization, the company's newest technology, and learned and applied industry design methods. The culmination of the camp was a professional presentation delivered by students to stakeholders from the basketball organization and technology company. In this presentation students share their final, interactive, prototype based on everything they learned and experienced during the camp. To date, the camp has run two times and has been refined and iterated based on after-action reviews (AAR) to identify and implement improvement opportunities. The most recent camp was run in July 2023 which touted a solid framework that aligned with the vocational program's mission to "Empower passionate people to pursue their purpose" and the industry partners' goal to engage the basketball community through technology. The camp is slated to run for a third year during the summer of 2024. The STEM camp's lessons learned, evolving framework, and encountered challenges are shared in this paper along with the unique, cross-functional, cross-organizational partnership that was the impetus for the camp's creation.