Eradicating STEM Deserts. OASIS is an acronym that describes our mission- Opening Access to STEAM in Informal Settings. Our goal is to leverage technology and logistics to change the economics of providing high-quality, hands-on STEAM experiences so that children everywhere can have access. We've developed content that inspires youth and develops their spatial intelligence, collaboration skills, and problem-solving ability while engaging their sense of play.

Our story begins in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when VHS tapes reigned supreme. Once school closed for the day, Maurice raced home to enjoy bootleg recordings of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Transformers with his father. It was in this “informal after-school setting” that Maurice discovered how engineering and technology could be used to drive the future. Maurice’s father used the characters, setting, and plot lines in these sci-fi stories to draw connections to the real world and more importantly, to show Maurice that he, too, could become an engineer. Along with his father, Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) in Star Trek and Arlo Pear (Richard Pryor) in Moving became his childhood heroes.

For these reasons, Maurice has devoted the last several years to helping young people develop that same passion and inspiration around all things STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). Maurice’s pay-it-forward attitude began while teaching introductory engineering classes at Columbus State Community College in 2013. During this time, he noticed a disturbing pattern amongst his mostly twenty-something year-old students where many of them lacked one of the most fundamental skills of engineering--spatial intelligence. To strengthen this skill, Maurice mimicked the same approach as his father--to connect fictional characters like Iron Man to the engineering concepts he needed to teach, which included the engineering design process, blueprint reading, and 3D modeling.

SIMPLR (which stood for sci-fi, imagination, making, pepakura, literacy, and rubik’s cube) was born shortly after and Maurice began bringing this same methodology to high school students in the form of four-hour labs (sessions). Maurice taught youth how to program R2D2-style robots, build lightsabers, fly drones, and more. Maurice soon discovered, however, that high school was even too late--that kids’ spatial intelligence needed to be developed much earlier. Therefore, in 2016, SIMPLR switched its focus to youth in grades K-8, and particularly those in underserved communities. It was also around this time that Erica went from full-time assistant professor at Otterbein University to full-time manager for SIMPLR. Erica’s background included English/literacy education, African American studies, and women’s studies, therefore, in this new role, Erica brought her extensive education to bear in continuing to create high-quality, standards-based, equity-oriented STEAM curricula.