Dover ShockwaveFRC Team 4546

Student and Alumni Impact

Since 2013, Dover Shockwave Robotics has operated a year-round engineering apprenticeship program out of Dover High School. What began as a small group of students with no technical experience has grown into a program whose alumni have gone on to PhD programs, master’s degrees, professional engineering careers, and skilled technical trades across the country.

Our students gain practical engineering experience, build real confidence, and learn what every working engineer eventually learns — that failure is part of the work. They try, they fail, they figure out what went wrong, and they move forward. That habit of mind is what we send with them into college and into careers.

The program is open to all interested students in the Dover School District regardless of prior technical experience, and we have charged no student participation fees since 2019.

Across thirteen years, the majority of Shockwave alumni have pursued STEM careers in higher education, professional engineering, and skilled technical trades. Pathways have spanned multiple engineering, computer science, mathematics, and physical science disciplines, with several alumni earning or pursuing graduate degrees including PhD studies currently underway. Recent highlights include:

  • A recent graduate is beginning a Master’s in Civil Engineering after completing his undergraduate degree early.
  • An alumni holds a Master’s in Computer Science and works as a Project Engineer at the University of New Hampshire.
  • Two alumni have entered the U.S. Navy’s professional machinist apprenticeship program — one has completed the program and is now working in the trade, while a second is currently in training.
  • In the 2025 graduating class of Dover High School, the first, second, and third ranked students were all Shockwave members.

Nationally, 81% of FIRST Robotics alumni choose STEM majors by their fourth year of college. Our outcomes consistently meet or exceed that benchmark — notable given our small roster and the small-city context in which we operate. (Source: Brandeis University Center for Youth and Communities, The FIRST Longitudinal Study 10-Year Final Report , 2024.)