Overview:
The unveiling of the engineering center brought much anticipation after the COVID-19 pandemic, construction snafus and water leaks delayed completion by nearly four years
This wasn’t your ordinary ribbon-cutting ceremony.
A laser cutter box crafted by Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy students sent a cloud of smoke into the air as it cut a blue ribbon — formally unveiling on Thursday the long-awaited Virgil Elings Center for Creative Learning.
After nine years of construction and pooling together funding from the state, philanthropists and taxpayers, students in the prestigious engineering academy will now be able to work in an 11,000-square-foot design lab with specialized areas for product testing, quality evaluation and manufacturing equipped with “industry standard” facilities.
It also doubles as a museum to show off their projects.
“In the beginning, Dos Pueblos High School was designed to evolve, innovate and look towards the future,” said Dos Pueblos Principal Bill Woodard. “This project carries that forward.”
Nearly 50 people watched the ribbon-cutting and listened to speeches about the center, including Dos Pueblos students, Santa Barbara Unified leaders and Goleta city councilmembers. Attendees also enjoyed presentations from engineering academy students inside the new center along with light refreshments.
The unveiling of the engineering center brought much anticipation after the COVID-19 pandemic, construction snafus and water leaks delayed completion by nearly four years.
The center is part of a $17.7 million project transforming the south-side of the Dos Pueblos campus, which added a Virgil Elings Media and Communication Center for its broadcast news program in 2024. The building also contains specialized facilities for its computer science program.
Of the $17.7 million bill, $6.3 million came from the Formative Foundation (formerly the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy Foundation) — which includes a $4 million endowment from Virgil Elings himself — $7.2 million came from a Santa Barbara Unified school modernization bond voters passed in 2016 and $4.2 million came from state grants.
“It was an ambitious vision, brought to life through the collaboration of teachers across all three programs,” Woodard said.
As the center’s doors opened at 12 p.m., some 30 engineering students began firing up their projects, explaining how they worked and why the center was the fundamental missing piece of the puzzle.
For Alyssa Flores, the first three years of the engineering academy was about learning fundamental engineering skills.
Now that she’s in her senior year, she gets to put those skills to use — and in a new, much larger space.
“This builds on that excitement plus a little more,” Flores said, as she demonstrated how different-sized objects are impacted by inertia with her project, Turntable Tango.
Boden Koed and Isaac Yishal have been working on a laser table for two weeks. The DP seniors said they’re excited to show it off to aspiring engineers in the new space when elementary schools come to visit in December.
The center is the creation of Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy founders Amir and Emily Shaeer, who both graduated from Dos Pueblos.
Emily said the space is for students to show off not just their finished product but also their process, to dispel the mysteries behind manufacturing and engineering.
“Our vision is to invite people in to be part of the process and to co-create with the students,” Emily said.
Before the center opened, Emily said students’ projects were like remodeling a house – where all belongings and furniture are left in storage.
“We were doing it in this really essentialist way because we didn’t have space for all of these exhibits to be out and to be iterating,” Emily said. “Now the students can come and get their hands dirty with all of it, working to bring them to completion.”
Amir and Emily have been early supporters of career technical education, helping to bolster Dos Pueblos High School’s academic reputation by founding the engineering academy in 2001.
“We are such strong advocates for career technical education because that’s a space in public education that really allows for, encourages and even mandates innovation, because this space is really tied to industry,” Emily said. “Because career technical education is like an industry pipeline and preparation, there’s space for it to be a little bit more nimble and responsive as things evolve.”
