Mission
Liftoff is a project dedicated to spreading the possibilities that STEM has to offer, especially in aerospace engineering!
Currently, many students around the world have little access to STEM and do not realize the viable and interesting career paths that it has to offer. Even within schools that have STEM programs, aerospace engineering is one part that is significantly overshadowed. This can be changed!
To combat these issues, Liftoff includes a public library for all things aerospace and aims to reach more students with STEM workshops and mentoring.
Liftoff aims to give students opportunities to work on hands-on STEM and aerospace projects to inspire and prepare them for successful engineering careers in the future!
Our goal is to spread STEM to as many students as possible!
Currently, we have made a difference at 2 schools in the San Diego area by teaching STEM workshops for underprivileged or at-risk students. These students have been taught a combination of 3D printing, aerospace concepts, and design basics. These workshops gives the students an insight into what STEM is all about and encourages them to pursue a viable career in this area.
We have also taught robotics and STEM to students in Togo, Paraguay, and Ecuador. These students were previously unexposed to STEM, but by the end of our mentoring, they were able to compete in the FIRST Global robotics competition with robots and CubeSats.
We aim to reach more students and help them Liftoff their future in STEM!
Impact
About Ashiria
Ashiria is a high schooler who loves all things STEM! After some exposure to programming in elementary school, she joined a FIRST robotics team in 8th grade and kept growing from there. She continued to learn and joined RoboSub where she worked on underwater autonomous vehicles to compete against collegiate level teams. Under Ashiria’s vice captaincy, her team won the world champion title against prestigious universities such as CalTech and National University of Singapore, leading her to become captain the following year.
Through her journey, Ashiria realized that her childhood love for outer space and engineering could merge into an exciting career in aerospace engineering. However, she saw that aerospace engineering was never talked about in her school STEM programs, and further noticed that there were many areas that lacked a STEM program altogether.
That's why Ashiria founded Liftoff: to shed light on the area of aerospace engineering and expose more students to the fun of STEM.