NJIT's STEM Success Academy Propels Students Toward Engineering Futures

When the vessel "King Gizzard" lined up for the final round of NJIT's STEM Success Academy boat race, the stakes weren't high in the traditional sense - just a stream of air and a small plastic boat floating on a narrow water track in NJIT's Makerspace. But what was at play was far bigger: creativity, collaboration and the confidence to think differently.

Josh Rutka, a recent transfer student from Raritan Valley Community College and now a full-time mechanical engineering major at NJIT, drew on his years of experience in FIRST Robotics to help lead his team toward an unconventional design. While nearly every other group engineered sailboats powered by direct wind, Rutka's team flipped the concept: they designed a low-profile vessel with a funnel-style sail that redirected air for efficient propulsion.

The result was a boat that outpaced the competition and prompted rival teams to scramble to replicate the approach.

"From my time in robotics, I knew the quicker you start testing, the quicker you learn," said Rutka. "We scrapped the mast idea entirely and started experimenting with surface sails and airflow. It was the 'Jet Ski' idea that really worked. Our design was out of the box - and it worked better than we expected."

A Launchpad for Engineering Students

The boat race was just one part of NJIT's STEM Success Academy, a six-week summer program first launched in summer of 2024 with support from a federal grant secured by the university's School of Applied Engineering and Technology. Designed specifically for New Jersey community college students interested in pursuing bachelor's or advanced degrees in engineering, the program blended engineering fundamentals, interdisciplinary topics and hands-on prototyping workshops in NJIT's 21,000-square-foot Makerspace - the largest of its kind in the state. The program is built on developing "transferrable skills" that are useful for any branch of engineering, both professionally and academically.

"This program is about far more than summer enrichment," said Ashish Borgaonkar, assistant professor and principal investigator for the STEM Success Academy grant. "It's about removing barriers and creating strong, supported pathways into engineering for community college students across New Jersey."

Nearly 60 students participated in the 2025 cohort, many of whom - like Rutka - used the program as a launchpad into full-time undergraduate studies at NJIT. Through robust interdisciplinary and discipline-specific modules designed and taught by NJIT's subject matter expert faculty, small-team competitions, rapid prototyping challenges and faculty-led workshops on emerging technologies, the program built not just technical know-how, but also leadership, problem-solving and adaptability.

Rutka said the team challenges were especially meaningful. "I love competition, and I think it's one of the best ways to teach engineering," he said. "You learn to lead, to listen and to adapt your design on the fly."

Engineering Confidence in the Makerspace

At the heart of the program was the NJIT Makerspace, where students had access to professional-grade tools, materials and support to bring their ideas to life. For many students, this was their first time working in an engineering environment at this scale - one designed to encourage hands-on learning, risk-taking and innovation.

"In recent years, engineering education moved increasingly toward abstract analysis and numerical simulation," Moshe Kam, dean of NJIT's Newark College of Engineering and co-principal investigator of the grant, said. "The Makerspace and its programs using it are helping bring about the necessary balance by reconnecting engineering students with the machinery and infrastructure that connects us to the real world - the world in which engineering work and engineering achievements take place."

In the case of the boat race, that meant watching a team defy expectations by rethinking sail propulsion entirely. Their funnel-based design not only worked - it changed the direction of the competition, as other teams rushed to emulate it.

Now enrolled full-time at NJIT, Rutka hopes to pursue a career in design or test engineering, drawn to the same iterative process that drove his team's success. "This program confirmed that engineering is the right path for me," he said. "It gave me the opportunity to lead, to think creatively and to build something real."

For program leaders, the impact goes beyond just a single summer. "We're not just teaching engineering concepts - we're empowering students to see themselves as engineers," said Borgaonkar. As NJIT continues to expand its outreach and support for students entering the STEM pipeline, programs like the STEM Success Academy are helping to ensure that talent and potential - not access - determine who gets to innovate.