DCP is working to increase the number of students of color and women prepared to pursue STEM degrees and careers.
Our Program
Students engage in rigorous and engaging coursework beginning in middle school, participate in hands-on applied projects and internships and receive exposure to industry professions through mentorship opportunities. Students also receive STEM-focused college advising aligned with their major and area of study. Once in college, DCP provides college scholarships, coaching and career advising so that students advance to a strong first job that accelerates their career trajectory.
Rigorous and Engaging STEM Coursework
STEM preparation begins with rigorous and engaging coursework beginning in middle school and extending through high school.
Project-based Learning, Competitions and Symposiums
DCP’s STEM program is rooted in hands-on project-based learning and real-world application that extends beyond the standard PLTW curriculum.
Professional Immersion through Summer Internships and Enrichment
Summer internships and enrichment are critical to students’ professional development and exposure.
Student Projects
Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC)
TARC is the world’s largest student rocket contest and a key piece of the aerospace and defense industry’s strategy to build a stronger US workforce in STEM. The competition entails designing and building a rocket that has certain constraints, this could be the diameter of the body tubes, or whether or not it had to be painted. This rocket has to reach a certain height and return to the ground in a certain amount of time. It has to land safely with it’s parachutes deployed, and must contain a raw egg that MUST survive the flight. DCP’s rocket was designed to fly 775 feet in the air and deploy within 41 to 43 seconds without breaking the raw egg placed inside.
U.S. Drone Film Festival
The annual U.S Drone Film Festival is a competition held at the Oklahoma City Museum of Arts. Submissions consist of short videos under five minutes long, themed by the given list of categories to choose from. Our video’s theme was a landscape feature short film, aimed at focusing on the diversity California has to offer. The video was to be shot by a drone at least 50% of the time. Our team’s decision was to have the video shot by the drone 100% of the time. This caused us to have to travel to many different locations in which drones were allowed to be flown, which tended to be one of our biggest problems. We researched different parks and places where drones can be flown legally before we traveled as a team and spent about 3 hours at each place filming. See the video here.
Global Classroom STEAM Challenge
As part of Samsung’s “Global Classroom STEAM Challenge,” DCP partnered with Zhenjiang Vocational Technical College in Jiangsu, China to tackle three of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals: “Affordable and Clean Energy,” “Climate Action” and “Life on Land” by co-developing devices to reuse recyclables and plastic to cool and filter the air and conserve water. The students then traveled to the United Nations headquarters in New York to present their proposed solutions to a panel of government leaders, non-governmental organizations, educators and corporate leaders.
VEX Starstruck Competition
For the VEX Starstruck competition, the robot had to be able to perform certain tasks while following specific constraints. The rules of the game were to construct a robot that was able to throw stars and cubes across a fence. The robot had to be less than or exactly 18x18x18 in. with no max weight. The robot could only consist of VEX materials with very few exceptions. Finally the robot can only have a max of 10 motors and servos. The robot would be controlled by a VEX joystick controller however at the beginning of the match the robot had to have a 15 second autonomous period.
DCP Engineering Courses
- Intro to Engineering Design
- Principles of Engineering
- Applied Engineering Projects
- Computer Science Essentials
- Computer Science Principles
- Computer Science for Innovators and Makers (middle school)
Support STEM at DCP
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