For many high school students, a summertime Tuesday might include hanging out with friends, relaxing by the pool, or a part-time job.

For a dozen metro Atlanta high school students, a recent Tuesday found them Zooming with a representative from NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports and sliding into a simulator at Georgia Tech’s Student Competition Center to test their own driving skills. Later, they designed miniature solar-powered cars to race against each other and talked to an engineer from General Motors.

Welcome to the College of Engineering Summer Engineering Institute (SEI), a series of two weeklong camps for students to get excited about all things engineering and help them craft a compelling college application.

In week one, motorsports was the portal to almost every facet of engineering the group explored — aerospace and materials science for designing light, sleek vehicles; electrical and computer for the sensors and electronic systems in those vehicles; mechanical for the engines and chassis. For high schoolers in the camp’s second week, aerodynamics served as the focal point, including indoor skydiving.

“Summer camps are a great way to build our pipeline and get students excited about engineering while preparing them to successfully apply to college,” said Joy Harris, director of Women in Engineering (WIE) and a Georgia Tech graduate herself. “I did summer camps in junior high school and high school, and it changed my trajectory for college.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.