History
SystemsGo began firing up high school students with its innovative approach to learning Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) in 1996 at Fredericksburg High School, in Fredericksburg, Texas.
Teacher Brett Williams, a graduate of Texas A&M University and founder of SystemsGo, believed there was a better way to educate and motivate students to become tomorrow’s innovators. Drawing on his training in the sciences and his work in the private sector, he laid the foundation for the program in his Principles of Technology class. With administrative and community support, Williams’s students began designing, building and launching rockets.
The classroom experience guided students through hands-on research, as well as design and development instruction within the engineering and technology disciplines.
Through successes and failures, students picked up valuable life skills such as problem solving, testing, analysis, documentation, reporting, project management, teamwork, and communication.
Now SystemsGo, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, shares its sequenced engineering curriculum with high schools in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Abu Dhabi. The program now guides students from an introduction to R&D and engineering skills to designing and building rockets for testing at White Sands Missile Range.
The rockets are awesome and encouraging students to explore the boundaries of space is fantastic, but the real goal is to encourage students to expand their own boundaries as they launch themselves to become tomorrow’s innovators.