Dean Kevin Truman and the faculty and staff of the UMKC School of Computing and Engineering joined with our Kansas City community to celebrate the opening of the Kansas City Engineering Zone (KC EZ) on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. Located on the UMKC campus at 4825 Troost Ave., KC EZ is a direct response to the equity and access issues faced by Kanas City’s K-12 urban schools and their students, providing tremendous STEM resources and mentoring.
A pilot program that includes high school FIRST® Robotics teams from Paseo Academy of Fine & Performing Arts and Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, Dean Kevin Truman noted that the facility is the first step to providing high school students from Kansas City’s urban core access to equipment and engineering/computer science mentors. He said he hoped eventually 120 or more high school students will be able to participate and utilize the KC EZ resources regularly over the year and during the summer the KC EZ will host multiple 7-12 grade outreach workshops and summer programs.
Established by UMKC School of Computing and Engineering through a partnership with KC STEM Alliance, assistance from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the support of KC EZ founding partners: US Engineering, NNSA, Honeywell, BNIM, JE Dunn and Mark One Electric, students now have access to machine tools and space for designing, programming, and building robots. These partners provided in-kind donations of equipment, project management and construction, as well as down-the-road corporate commitments of financial and volunteer support.
See the excitement at Charles Maples’ and Bridget Koan’s photo galleries. Learn more about KC EZ in the UMKC Today and Kansas City Star articles or watch the Fox 4 story. Photos shown are from Charles Maples photo gallery.
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