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Nicholas Sukhu of Glenn Dale is only 13, but he is already getting experience for his planned career as an architectural or mechanical designer.

He and more than 30 of his classmates are piloting a new course at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt that would give students in the science and technology magnet program hands-on experience in engineering. Their curriculum, which focuses on designing through the computer-assisted drawing program Pro/Desktop, was designed this summer by graduates of the school's science and technology program.

"It's actually not that hard of a program once you get working on it," Nicholas said, while staring at his computer screen, manipulating the design of his robot, "Lazy-bot," on the Pro/Desktop software.

The robot is one of several projects the students are working on, including designing a light bulb and a candy bar, while following specific requirements about what the product should look like.

Nicholas said the experience working with the software and in the course will prepare him for the future.

"This would be a very good step to doing that," he said of his career goals.

The 10 graduates of Eleanor Roosevelt who are studying math or science in college returned to the high school this summer to revamp the school's engineering curriculum – with a goal that students such as Nicholas will have the skills they need to succeed in science and engineering programs once they get to college.

"They'll be ahead of the game when they get there," said Rocco Mennella, who teaches at Prince George's Community College in Largo and Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and assists with the science and technology program at Roosevelt.

The course is self-directed and completed in modules, meaning students complete assignments at their own pace with the help of a facilitating teacher.

The students in the pilot program work on their modules three days per week and take a more traditional engineering course with a textbook the other two days.

Mennella said the nature of the course allows it to be taught by someone who is not an engineering teacher, as there is a shortage of high school engineering teachers. Teachers who specifically teach engineering usually work in the schools with science and technology programs. At Roosevelt, three of the engineering teachers have retired in the last few years.

Jane Hemelt, coordinator of the Roosevelt program, said difficulty in recruiting engineering teachers is a national trend in specialized programs.

While the course is being piloted in one engineering class this fall, there are plans to expand it to all three science and technology programs, which include Roosevelt, Charles Herbert Flowers High School in Springdale and Oxon Hill High School.

When the curriculum is complete, the school has plans to place the lessons on the Internet — though they have not decided which Web site will host them — for whoever wants to use them.

The alumni had been previously working with the schools on summer calculus programs for Roosevelt, and Hemelt said the teachers opted to have them work on their new engineering curriculum.

The self-direction allows students to work individually and to help each other, Hemelt said.

"Some kids are so advanced they've become almost teaching assistants," she said.

Hemelt said the courses previously did involve some hands-on work, but the new course has involved significantly more hands-on experience.

When the idea came up to redesign the courses, A.J. Cressman of Bowie, a Roosevelt graduate and junior physics major at California Institute of Technology, surveyed his professors, fellow graduates and anyone else who could give him advice about what to include in the curriculum to prepare students for college.

"It's exciting actually. I took these classes in high school, and the classes we've come up with I wish I had taken," Cressman said. "That's kind of just our whole take on it is what we would want to have taken, what would have prepared us better."

Cressman and the other students spent at least four hours per day for about 10 weeks working with Mennella to develop the courses.

Cressman said they plan to continue working on the courses and finish them next summer.

So far, they have finished the Computer-Aided Drafting course, a course on computer programming, and they are still working on courses involving electrical, mechanical and civil engineering.

The curriculum redevelopment was funded through a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, which gives $29,000 in grant funding annually to Roosevelt's science and technology program. Part of the grant funding was used to provide a stipend to the students who redesigned the curriculum. Among the other projects the school has used the grant funding for are having students do research in the labs at the National Institutes of Health and writing a statistics manual for use in science classes.

Debra Felix, senior program officer at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said the redesign is unusual.

"This is a really unique curriculum, and it's a unique model in that it's pretty much entirely alumni-produced, young alumni," Felix said. "I haven't seen anything like that anywhere. I think you'd be hard pressed to find another one in the entire country that was designed that way."

Felix said training the engineers of tomorrow is crucial to ensuring other scientists, including those who do medical research, will have the tools they need.

"Although Howard Hughes Medical Institute's focus is on biomedical science and research, biomedical scientists have to work with physicians and chemists and engineers and computer science people to be the most effective at their work," Felix said.

In the engineering class Monday, sophomore Tiffany Tu of Laurel showed off a jet she had made on her computer. The 15-year-old said she plans to pursue a career in computer science and enjoys the class projects.

"I get to work with computers, which makes me happy," she said.

E-mail Megan King at mking@gazette.net.