Charlie

Mr. Roboto

Meet Mr. Roboto.

He’s been leading our young minds of tomorrow in robotics courses and competitions for eight years, and he’s about to launch our first ever aerospace engineering academy for high schoolers. All thanks to a flick from Boeing’s magic wand.

We sit down with Mr. R (a.k.a. David Roemer) over a bourbon and cigar to talk about the progress path he is helping to carve out for Charleston’s next generation.

He sings praises for Boeing, which he says is the real hero here. From day one, Boeing has been adamant about community involvement, particularly in education. And now we see its first big stamp. The company approached the school district, proposing a $50,000 grant to fund an aerospace engineering academy at Stall High School in North Charleston, and got its wish. The magnet program, open to all students in the tri-county area, will consist of two tracks: an engineering track, designed for kids going off to 4-year colleges, and a manufacturing track, designed for those headed to two-year colleges or ready to jump straight into the work force.

Great concept. But who’s going to bring it to life?

There was only one man.

Mr. R, a full-time engineering teacher at Wando High School, was immediately contacted to create the program. Approached a week ago with the course set to launch at the beginning of school in August, he is left with just a handful of weeks to develop (from scratch, mind you) this first of its kind advanced program in Charleston—and perhaps, in the country.

His task? Create the curriculum for the intro course, as well as mentor the lead teacher during year one. He’s giddy with excitement like a kid himself over the project. When asked what it feels like to be creating something so monumental in education for something so significant to our city like Boeing, he breaks the stoic teacher facade and giggles, “It’s totally awesome!!”

Of course, what this is really all about is planting the seeds for Boeing’s future work force, and other like companies coming in as a result of Boeing and the talent we’re fostering. It’s got huge economic impacts for Charleston.

We’re lucky to even have Mr. R. He moved to Charleston eight years ago to semi-retire and teach a little. He admits, “Unbeknownst to me, teaching is easily the most difficult thing I’ve ever done!” (insert hearty laugh here).

He’s a staple at Wando, teaching engineering courses and serving as advisor to the engineering club. Robots are his teaching platform of choice. He’s led his robotics teams to several competitions across the Southeast, bringing home the gold last year. And don’t think all these robots do is race each other to a finish line. For example, his 9th grade girls built a robot to play golf. Legos have come a long way, apparently.

For the robotics competitions, he plays mentor and “admin guy,” as he puts it. He says about a third of the way into the projects, the students eclipse his knowledge. “But how cool is that?!” he says with such excitement. Spoken like a true teacher proud of his kids.

This all sounds a lot more progressive than how we remember high school. But that’s just the point. Times have changed. He tells us about “career clusters” that students now participate in, helping to start kids on meaningful paths early on. So whether it’s engineering, culinary arts, dance or whatever it might be, students can now relate core knowledge and skills (math, science, english) to their future career paths. It’s college, folks. At age 14.

And we can thank Mr. R in large part.

Part engineer, part robot, all heart.

Forrr-waaarrrd.

Story by: Caroline Nuttall
Photos by: Wendy Mogul and provided