B.L.A.C.K. in Engineering Summer Academy Camp at is a week-long residential camp at the University of Georgia designed for high school students from under-represented and under served populations to Build Leaders through Analysis, Conceptualization, and Knowledge. This past July 2022, twenty-one eager engineers joined the B.L.A.C.K. in Engineering Camp to learn and practice the design process through hands-on built projects, including remote program-controlled robots that move through can race and navigate mazes. As part of the camp, students practiced developing oral and written communication skills to prepare them as future leaders, learned how to analyze information and data relevant to solving real engineering problems, and created designs for ethical engineering solutions. The program is designed for students to build upon their current math, physics, and science knowledge to expand their understanding of these concepts in relation to engineering. Students stayed on campus in the residence hall to gain a taste of college life!
The camp was instructed by Dr. Racheida S. Lewis, Assistant Professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Engineering Education Transformations Institute (EETI) at the University of Georgia. Dr. Lewis is a recognized Gates Millennium Scholar, GEM Associate Fellow, New Horizon Scholar, and a 2019 inductee into the Bouchet Honor Society. She completed her doctoral work at Virginia Tech where she focused on the impact matriculation structures have on self-efficacy development in electrical and computer engineering students. Racheida believes in creating a diverse engineering field and strives to do so through connecting with teaching, and mentoring future engineers. She has devoted her life to this mission through her leadership and lifetime membership in the National Society of Black Engineers. Ultimately, Racheida aspires to bridge together research and pedagogy within the academy to improve engineering education within the field and across disciplines.