The Young Engineers Academy started started in 1988. Hundreds of High School Students participated in the academic program. Schools from Dracut, Lowell, Chelmsford. Westford, Marblehead, from Boston Latin Academy, from New Hampshire Christian Academy organized special busses to bring their students to AETC classes during Fall and Spring Semesters.
Many of these students came as undergraduate students of UMass. Many of them continued their education in graduate school. Some of them already had doctoral degrees. Some of 12th graders published their first result of their research in professional journals and gave talks at international conferences when working at AETC laboratory. Some of them developed patents on solar/electric lawn mowers. Few school teams (Dracut and Christian Academy from Nashua) were viners in open US solar races for schools.
Middle-schools from Andover, Chelmsford and others participated in AETC Young Engineers Academy program. The young scientist attracted a lot of interest from media. In different years publications of Boston Glob, New-Your Times, Lowell Sun, Public TV (channel 2) interviewed the youngest researchers.