Drones, Rovers and Submersibles: Orange Works Fuels the Next Generation of Engineers The classroom spaces in the Center for Science and Technology buzz with activity as high school students build and learn how to code autonomous vehicles on land, in the air and underwater. A black and white quadcopter drone hovers a few feet above ground, precisely navigating a test flight. On the ground, black robotic rovers navigate a racecourse consisting of varying terrains, mapped out in blue and orange masking tape. Below the surface, twin submersibles glide through the water, responding to commands from students on the pool deck relayed through a tethered topside control unit. Orange Works is a summer STEM program that ran June 29 through July 28 in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), meant to develop a pipeline of high school students interested in working with autonomous vehicles. As part of the program, 23 high school students from the greater Syracuse area built and operated different autonomous systems using video game-style controllers. Students also worked on UAS-SAR (Unmanned Air System—Synthetic Aperture Radar), exploring radar imaging by building and flying a radar on a small drone and using it to capture images of different objects. Throughout the program, students also got a foundational look at the batteries driving these systems, discussing how factors like weight, capacity and charge time shape the performance of vehicles operating on land, in the air and underwater. “It’s important to get high schoolers into engineering and the STEM fields,” says Connor Sumner ’25, G’27, a current teaching assistant who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and will complete a master’s degree in May. “Seeing a drone fly by, watching the submarine glide across the water and learning how to build the race car is definitely one of the