Intro to Engineering (IED) is taught by Mr. Rueda Garcia and is now being offered at Rancho.

“I really enjoy teaching this class, it’s very challenging. It’s my first year teaching it and I feel like I’m just training my students just as how I was trained so it’s pretty fun,” said Mr. Rueda Garcia.

The class was brought to Rancho by Project Lead The Way, a nationwide program that helps high schools offer engineering classes. During the second semester of 2015-2016, the school received the money to pay for all the necessities, which included teacher training and equipment.

“I want to be a mechanicanical engineer and I think this class would benefit me in the long run,” said Francisco Ramos, junior.

IED teaches students how to draw concepts, create 3D models, and make technical drawings in the computer and afterwards, print it on a 3D printer.

“The class is based on pretending that you’re creating a product to sell to a big client, so the students are actually going to do presentations as if they were engineers selling their design,” Mr. Garcia explained.

The class covers up a lot of material, concepts, and skills in a short period of time. Mr. Garcia underwent training during the summer for two weeks at UC San Diego.

“In two weeks we covered material for one year. So it was very intense and we spent a lot of time working from 8 AM to 5 PM in teams together with other teachers and some of them had to stay until midnight just to finish their projects.” said Mr. Garcia.

The class will be useful to any student aspiring to be engineers. This could be their first step in gaining the necessary skills and experience they will need for the future.