Jashan Gill on The Importance of STEM Racing USA

📷 Photo Credit © Jashan Gill

After having an early interest in engineering in elementary school, Jashan Gill now studies mechanical engineering at college. Throughout his journey, STEM Racing USA has been a big influence for him. From building interest to honing skills, it allowed him to experience STEM in real-life conditions. Initially, Gill was a part of two teams to make it to the STEM Racing World Finals before becoming a mentor and he now studies the field. STEM Racing USA may have been the start of his journey, but it won’t be the end. During the 2026 National Finals, Icons Performance caught up with him to discuss his experiences and the importance of STEM Programmes for young people.

A Single Assembly To The World Finals

Gill’s first experience with STEM Racing USA came in 2018 when he was in elementary school. Then, it was known as F1 in Schools, and they came to do an assembly on who they are and what they do. Speaking to Icons Performance, he recalled that whilst they were speaking, “I was like, ‘that’s pretty cool’”. Moving into middle school, Gill took the chance to join the team and consequently won the development class championship. The following year, he progressed into his school’s professional team—Alpha1 Racing. 

In 2020, the team headed to Nationals. However, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Gill explained that it was “a whole virtual thing. You had to mail in your cars … record your verbal presentation … do your interviews on Zoom.” Alpha1 Racing finished fifth and advanced to the virtual world finals. Coming 34th overall out of the 40 competing teams, the engineer expressed that “it was a very good experience”. He shared that it “got me to know the level of competition that there is at that higher level”.

After switching schools, he then joined Aeros Racing as their lead engineer. His role was to redesign the car, and he led them to a national win in 2023. Once again, in 2024, Gill advanced to the world finals, coming P13 overall. After two world finals, his role switched, leaving the team to become a mentor. He found the new challenge fun, and under his guidance, Aeros Racing won nationals again in 2025. “It was an incredible experience, seeing that all the skills that I had built up over the years were actually applicable.”

From STEM To School

Through his years as part of STEM Racing USA, Gill has built his skills, learning to overcome obstacles. He claimed that the “biggest challenge is just learning doing all that stuff.” He explained how his school offered the team space to work, but didn’t provide many resources to teach them. Consequently, they had to develop their learning as they worked through the project. Furthermore, many of the resources he found were advanced and not appropriate for early learning as a sophomore in high school. As a result, Gill often learnt through trialling the concepts and growing from what worked. 

Becoming lead engineer also taught him valuable lessons. He is “not a natural leader” so this role helped him gain those skills. As the bridge between project management and the engineering sides of the team, Gill learnt to delegate tasks, keep his team members on track, and manage the project effectively. He shared that his ADHD affects his executive functioning, explaining that doing this project helped him work on developing how to do a task that might otherwise slip through the cracks. Ultimately, he now believes that he can “go and apply that in the future”, giving him more transferable skills as he progresses his career. 

The engineer believes that STEM Racing definitely bridges the gap between classroom learning and real-world experience and connects the two. He explained that it especially connected physics due to the mechanics and “dynamics and statics”. For Gill, participating in this programme also “helped my writing a whole lot in terms of clearly explaining”. As part of the project, an 11-page portfolio was required to explain the process of the project. This aspect helped him grow his writing skills, which Gill feels helped him with his college applications.

Importance of STEM Racing

Before joining STEM Racing, Gill was a part of a LEGO League, participating in a LEGO Robotics Competition. Whilst he always had an enjoyment of STEM and mechanics, he told us that he also enjoyed film making and history. So whilst STEM Racing didn’t inspire his love of engineering, he credits that it “introduced me to the idea that I could pursue that as a path rather than just doing it on the side”, and then further solidified that it was a career he wanted to pursue. 

To round out the interview, we reflected on the importance of programmes like STEM Racing and his advice. He shared that the US has other programmes, such as FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), to help young people get into STEM subjects. Gill reflected that because these programmes “introduce you at a young age”, they are really important in terms of introducing “ideas and concepts that they might use at a higher level”. STEM Racing in particular operates at a high level, and encompasses a range of topics outside of STEM, from enterprise to branding, and Gill believes this gives you a great start no matter the career path. “It does give young people a very good opportunity [of] breaking into that field”, he admitted. 

And the one piece of advice Jashan Gill would give to anyone considering STEM Racing? His advice was simply: “everything takes a lot longer than you think it does.” He suggested it could take months longer than expected, so offered the advice to “leave some buffer time”.

Now, Gill is in his first year studying engineering at college. He is enjoying the course, and after reflecting on his STEM Racing experience, has realised he has been able to “apply a lot of the things that I learnt”. Ultimately, he has left his path open for whichever direction it may take, but his dream would be to work within motorsports. He acknowledged that his “opportunities will evolve as it goes along”, but knows that his participation in STEM Racing throughout high school has helped him on his journey.