Engineering Learning Made Fun?

An engineer that can teach is an uncommon engineer.

Deb Sigel has been running and teaching hands-on, tool-based STEM outreach for over 10 years. In the process she has mastered and has trained other engineers in how to effectively work with non-technical audiences, something that most engineers find difficult. This is why when most engineers come in for career day talk, the kids give them a big bored eye roll. Yes, you really are that boring and inaccessible. Her superpower of working with non-technical audiences makes her an even better trainer for technical audiences of different backgrounds. She is able to develop group specific content, reach her audience at their skill level(s) without shame, and bring relevance that makes learning new content enjoyable.

In addition to being an engineer, Deb has taught and designed several hands-on courses including college Manufacturing, Introductory C & Embedded Programming, Intro & Advanced Robotics, Introduction to Engineering, high school Intro Engineering (design and fabrication), and middle school Digital Technology. She currently teaches the Arduino and Space Mission Design courses for the Governor’s Institute of Vermont, an advanced intensive program for high school students interested in deep dives in technical content. In Los Angeles she founded and ran a non-profit called Kids Building Things that utilized local volunteer engineers to teach hands-on engineering and fabrication (including taking things apart, engineering drawings, wood turning, soldering, and reverse engineering) to local students. She also piloted and managed a new branch of the reDiscover Center and their summer tinkering camp teaching power-tool woodworking for ages 7-12 in Pasadena, CA for several years.

While we may not teach your team how to dissect a toaster and reverse engineer it into a bread shooting machine, as we do with kids, we would be happy to discuss what custom technical training your organization needs. We can provide training in specific technical content, educate a new manager to avoid common pitfalls, or provide general engineering skills for less technical teams. We recommend a series of short modules to enable real practice to occur in between and opportunities to have questions answered.

We specialize in training customized for your organization. For more standard training like drafting, GD&T, load analysis, etc., we’ll recommend other vendors and help you evaluate your options.

Drop us a line to discuss what your team might need.

Practical Management Skills

Why let your management make the same mistakes all beginning managers do? Let us teach them the basic skills to enable their team to succeed.

With experience in management, businesses transitioning from small to large, and fast paced aerospace, John McNeil brings a wealth of management skills and hands-on knowledge of mistakes into his training and mentorship.