Every project in this club ends the same way: a student who learned something turns around and gives it to someone else. Here's the full slate.
From a first Arduino circuit to competition builds. New members start from zero and are taught by the members ahead of them — and this year, by Georgia Tech students CONFIRM, college engineers teaching the same work they'll one day pass down. The club competes, demos, and teaches robotics across every program it touches.
The club's oldest craft, and its engine of service. As a Microsoft Registered Refurbisher, members take in donated machines, diagnose them, rebuild them, and send them back out — to seniors, shelters, community centers, small businesses, and schools. Drexel University students mentor the benches this year CONFIRM. Come competition season, the club tests itself in Titanium Tech against clubs from Chicago, Cicero, and Mexico.
Each summer, YTC brings robotics and refurbishing into Camp Kuumba, Evanston's summer program for young Black men — club members teaching campers, the model doing in July exactly what it does all school year. CONFIRM Summer 2026 session details.
Members mentor Fifth Ward middle-schoolers in STEM projects during the year and at summer tech camp. And every month they return to Blake Manor and Primm Towers to run tech lessons for seniors — on computer labs the club built for those residences in the first place.
Give the work away: that's been the habit since 2009. Labs for senior residences. Machines for shelters and small businesses. A technology pilot with the Evanston Haitian Congress to bring computers to Haitian schools. And when Hurricane Katrina hit, six members traveled to New Orleans, processed 40+ computers, and launched two brand-new clubs — labs in a school and a church.
Since 2009, ETHS has powered YTC's African Initiative — teaching robotics and refurbishing to peers in Ethiopia, Namibia, and Mozambique, first over video conference, building on groundwork laid by Namibian educator Eslien Tsuses. In July 2025 came the leap: eight members flew to Namibia to teach in person, meeting students they'd only ever taught through a screen — and sat down with the U.S. Embassy in Namibia and Namibian education officials to plan what's next.
The projects are the visible part. The transformation is the point.
Read the student stories →