Lily Yengo loves math, kids, and fellow nerds. The fourth-year mechanical engineering student participated on the Tiger Tutor Team this past spring semester, working with accelerated fifth graders in the Rochester City School District to ensure they retain their love of math. This summer, Yengo is helping to enhance instructional materials—adding and testing new activities and problems-- and providing improvements to the overall process of recruiting and training new tutors for the upcoming academic year. Based in the industrial and systems engineering department, the Tiger Tutor Team began in the 2024-2025 academic year, and more than 60 RIT students tutored five eighth-grade classes and one group of talented fifth graders at three Rochester schools: Loretta Johnson Middle School, School of the Arts, and No. 12 School. The goal was to keep students in accelerated programs excited about, and engaged in, math, as well as improve passing rates for those taking the New York State Regents exams. “I love working with kids. I love math, I’m a huge nerd and so working with these super smart kids who are huge nerds—and I mean this in the most loving way possible—they were there because they wanted to be there. They wanted to learn algebra and trigonometry in their free time. So, we taught them,” said Yengo, who is from Skaneateles, N.Y. Yengo is currently on co-op in Rochester for the DDS Companies, creating base maps of underground utilities to be used in natural gas main installations. She assesses historical records and current photos to compile a map with all the necessary information above and below ground. Yengo talked about the tutoring work and her inspiration for teaching. What is the Tiger Tutor Team? And who were the students you worked with? It’s very new. Dr. Katie (industrial engineering department head Katie McConky) began a partnership with the Rochester City School District and invited engineering and math students to volunteer. She said if you like working with kids and if you like math you should be a Tiger Tutor, and I was like yeah… perfect! There were about 15 of us that worked with the fifth-grade students in groups of three or four. What are you doing this summer to support the program for the upcoming academic year? Sometimes it’s trial by fire and you just need to throw it together and see what works and what doesn’t. We didn’t have a curriculum per se, so my job now is to do that work so that next semester’s tutors are prepared. Everything will be ready. I may not have known how to teach someone the quadratic formula, but my job over the summer is to prepare a guide for the tutors with worksheets and answers, just to make everything more streamlined. Coming up with math problems on the fly is really hard. Why is work like this important for you, your peers, and the fifth graders? For me, at RIT, I am a student, I am there to learn and I’m trying to soak up as much calculus as I can, because it is really hard. But with the kids, it is such a different age demographic. It’s fun to talk to them and these kids are fun. As someone who grew up in public schools in situations similar to them, I loved learning and would have loved to have a program like this—a program to push the boundaries of what I knew. To succeed in something that challenging is rewarding—for them and for us. And you can tell that they know that is really hard, and that’s why they like it too. When we do algebra together, they are asking questions, talking to each other, they are showing each other their work, it is a bigger conversation. How did you prepare for fifth graders who want to take eighth-grade advanced math classes? I’ve got to shout out to my mom. She was a teacher her whole life, now she is a principal. I have always been around kids. I’ve gone to her classroom after school and hung out with her and whatever kids she was teaching at the time. I’ve taken a lot from her to do this job. We’ve probably talked about this job more than any other that I’ve had because she cares about algebra curriculums, that’s her thing. She loves teaching. I learned the most from my mom about this. To learn more The pilot year saw significant gains in mastery rates for students taking the Algebra Regents exam, according to the RCSD Department of Math. RIT’s Tiger Tutor Team is seeking additional tutors and is expecting to expand to include both fifth and sixth graders from School No. 12. The time commitment for tutors is approximately two hours per week. To get involved, contact Professor Katie McConky at ktmeie@rit.edu.

Give teams of RIT students a design challenge, a 10-week deadline, and real clients in need of practical solutions, and they will rise to the occasion. Now in its 10th year, the interdisciplinary and collaborative Studio 930 program asks students to apply what they know, learn what they don’t, and design products that make life, or a single task, more efficient and accessible. Four teams presented their design solutions to clients from the Al Sigl Community of Agencies and Rochester Regional Health on July 16 in the SHED’s Brooks H. Brower Maker Showcase. Students working with the Al Sigl Community of Agencies designed:“Snuggo,” a wearable sensory toy/vest fashioned as a stingray to help calm children with autism spectrum disorder; and A freestanding, interactive play system to promote motor development skills. Teams assigned to Rochester Regional Health focused on projects to improve workflow obstacles identified by nurses and physical therapists in the health system. Their solutions included:A sturdy, but lightweight, medical bag with multiple compartments and a table to assist visiting home care nurses and physical therapists; and A mechanical bandage dispenser that opens the wrapper while keeping the gauze sterile—a task made difficult while wearing protective gloves. “Snuggo” team member Varun Varma, an MFA industrial design student from Mumbai, India, learned about bringing a concept to life. “It was really new to me because working with soft toys is something that requires a lot of sewing and using fabrics,” he said. “I’m used to conceptual projects, but this was manufacturing something physical, so that was very new to me, and I enjoyed it.” Noam Arenstein, a fourth-year mechatronics engineering technology major from Scarsdale, N.Y., applied to Studio 930 for the experience of working on a multidisciplinary team in preparation for entering the workforce. Later, he learned he could earn co-op credit from participating in the program, as well.   Studio930 introduced Arenstein to the process of design thinking and prioritizing the needs and perspectives of the end user and other stakeholders. “I’ve never worked on a product that is tailored to other people’s concerns,” Arenstein said. “One of the new experiences for me was including empathy when it comes to design.” Supported this summer by the School of Individualized Study (SOIS), Studio 930 has its roots in the industrial design department. Stan Rickel, associate professor in the School of Design, started the program in 2015 to give industrial design MFA graduates client-driven work experience. When a couple of engineering students heard about the idea and joined the group, Rickels saw how Studio 930 could expand. “The enthusiasm of the students kept it moving,” Rickel said. “This year, we had 15 students in the program from five different colleges and eight different academic programs.” The collaborative, client-based program also draws like-minded RIT professors whose interests complement and sometimes overlap. Engineering professor Dan Phillips, for instance, helps recruit students and elicit college support. He also solicits and assesses challenges from participating community partners. The bandage dispenser designed for Rochester Regional Health is one example of students brainstorming concepts with advice and feedback from the client, a strategic partner in the RIT-RRH Alliance. Studio 930 is both a program and a community that revolves around collaborative and interdisciplinary teamwork focused on accessibility and healthcare, according to Dan Harel, the studio’s manager and adjunct professor of industrial design. Studio 930 operates from the SHED, giving students easy access to makerspaces, materials, and meeting rooms. The facility, which opened in 2023, provides a common space for the Studio 930 teams, which, in the past, had been scattered in workshops across campus. Offering the program in the SHED has made a difference in the quality of the students’ projects, Harel said. “You get bigger ideas when you have the room to spread out and play with different processes.” Proximity to different technology, from textiles to 3D printing, in one facility encourages creative thinking, he said. “We were able to generate more and quicker prototypes using materials that are available here, or that we purchased, and everything went faster,” Harel said. “The students were really inspired by the open environment and interactions with visitors. You know, people come and see what you’re working on, and it’s really encouraging to students.” Along with SOIS, Studio 930 was sponsored by the industrial design department within the College of Art and Design, the College of Engineering Technology, the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, and the Waldron Rise Foundation.