Ballantyne Magazine covers news, events, real estate, restaurants, shopping, health, schools and business in the upscale Ballantyne Area of Charlotte, NC.
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56 BALLANTYNE MAGAZINE FALL 2014 TOM DUBICK'S ENGINEERING CLASSROOM at Charlotte Latin School is abuzz at 7:15 a.m. with electrical engineering students putting finishing touches on their senior projects. Alex Ormerod is testing a camera stashed in the nose of his scratch-made drone. Frank Marshall is tweaking elements of a circuit board the size of a forefinger. "You can put it into a glove and go where no human index finger has gone before," he quips. Next to him, Hank Ellison concentrates on his concept, a robotic hand. Dubick, a former programmer and chemist, flits from student to student, challenging his charges to push their intellectual envelope. "We want kids who create technology, not just consume it," he says. "America needs to recognize that understanding technology means fostering creators who make things, not just use them." To encourage this mentality, Dubick's engineering courses are part shop class, where students build quadcopters, electric trees and even a mechanical arm. STEM teachers at Ballantyne-area public high schools also take this project-based approach. THE STUFF AREA HIGH SCHOOLS RAMP UP STEM CLASSES TO PRODUCE NEXT-GEN INNOVATORS B RIGHT By Nan Bauroth | Photos by Shane Baskin