🔒CT firm’s flight simulators reshape STEM education

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If Jay LeBoff had been better at video games, his company may not exist today. But when LeBoff, creator of the STEM Pilot flight simulator, struggled to steer in his favorite racing game with his X-Box controller, he took a unique pit stop in 2004 by creating a surround-sound simulated race car.

“It had a steering wheel and pedals,” said LeBoff. It also had commercial potential. In 2005, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, he won the Editors' Choice Award for Product Innovation. “The next day, I was in the simulation business,” LeBoff said.

And he — and his company, Waterbury-based STEMPilot.com — have never looked back. In fact, within a year LeBoff was back in Vegas with a flight simulator prototype for his line of simulator products, which have since been sold to clients ranging from the military to universities and community colleges. And while those clients have helped LeBoff's company grow to generating nearly $1 million a year in revenue, he sees an even bigger — and more lucrative — market for his simulators: primary and secondary schools.

In fact, LeBoff has created a school-based curriculum to accompany his flight simulators, which he says provide hands-on experiences for young learners. The simulators are now being used in Greater Hartford.

“Our program is designed to apply math and science from the classroom in a meaningful project-based learning activity,” LeBoff said. “This approach aligns well with common core [federal education standards] and next-generation science standards.”

Generating interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) among primary and secondary students is important, LeBoff contends. “We need to get kids started early [with hands-on math and science learning],” he said, “or we'll have intellectuals who can't do anything.”

According to recent figures from the National Math & Science Initiative, a private-public partnership created to address the decline in students prepared for STEM careers, there were 26 industrialized nations whose high school students outperformed U.S. students in math and 19 nations in science.

And while math proficiency among elementary and middle school students has been increasing incrementally over the past quarter century, only 42 percent of U.S. fourth graders were advanced (8 percent) or proficient (34 percent) in 2013; among eighth graders it was 9 percent advanced and only 27 percent proficient, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Bryan Holmes, a science and engineering teacher at John Wallace Middle School in Newington, thinks that a big key to engaging more students to STEM programs is making the learning experience fun. In October, his middle school opened a $2.1 million Academy of Aerospace and Engineering — the first middle school in the state to offer a dedicated STEM facility. It features seven of LeBoff's flight simulators, known as edustations, which feature a 32-inch high-definition screen and plane components, including the yoke, throttle and rudder.

“The edustations have catapulted both our student and teachers into the very exciting and fun world of learning to fly small planes, jets and helicopters while learning about science, math, engineering and more,” Holmes said.

Teachers are provided with curriculums, missions and worksheets, said LeBoff, which allow students to apply the principles of aviation. “There is a profound use of geometry, trigonometry, physics, meteorology, geography, topography and astronomy with all the flight-planning tutorials,” LeBoff said. “A simulated flight plan requires problem solving, data, thoughtful planning and establishing outcomes; our goal is accomplished, creative thinkers.”

LeBoff's other goal is to sell more simulators, which retail from $3,500 for a base-model edustation to $25,000 for a six-screen display, combat simulator for military use. While his company is making headway with schools in Connecticut — including one simulator at Yale University — he is focusing STEM Pilot's sales strategy and salesforce on the country's largest education markets, including New York City, Los Angeles and Texas. “The education market is very large,” LeBoff said, noting there are more than 60,000 schools in the U.S. alone.

LeBoff contends that no competitors are bringing simulator technology to STEM education and says his company has created an educational model for the future. Within the next three to five years, he expects his company to generate between $5 million to $10 million in sales annually. Eventually, he said he'd like to sell the company to a national educational curriculum provider to expand distribution.

“Kids are lining up out the door to get in this program.” LeBoff said. “We are getting kids interested in math and science when they're young in a way that's not just memorizing stuff.”

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