ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) -- Calvin Davis didn’t always know he’d want to be on his high school robotics team, much less an award-winning researcher or an aspiring environmental engineer. All it took was one field trip to Imagine RIT to light his fire. "It felt inspirational, but also motivational. I was eager, very excited," Calvin says. He and his project partner won the Rising Prize for Vision and Inspiration Award at the Terra STEM Fair in spring. They were looking for a way to make solid oxide fuel cells more efficient. "We were all kind of just bouncing ideas off each other. I remember every Saturday, we went over to RIT and we just sat on our computer typing away, trying to figure out how these different molecular structures interact with each other and then we came up with our own equation to even make it a lot simpler for us, which was really cool!" Calvin says excitedly. "We were not expecting to get [the award] at all. Our jaws just dropped." Calvin’s opportunities come in large part through Rochester Prep’s partnership with RIT for the Science and Technology Entry Program—or STEP. The goal is increasing the number of historically underrepresented and disenfranchised people engaging in STEM and going to college. "When you have diverse backgrounds at the table, they’re providing unique problem-solving approaches that then create an environment that’s inclusive, equitable, and so all voices feel heard and valued. Not only are we diversifying the STEM professions, but we are providing role models for our future generations," says Ashley Simmons, the STEP director at RIT's K-12 University Center. Calvin is already on his way to being a role model himself—traveling to Zimbabwe to present his project at the Africa Science Buskers Festival in Harare over the summer. He says he loved hearing the ideas flowing freely from all over the world in one place. "What I found was that I actually had the opportunity to teach other people in Zimbabwe about our research and then they showed me some of their science projects and it was a whole influx of passions in science, where we just motivated each other‘s ideas, which I really loved," he says. "It is my motivation to hit those higher levels. That way once I am there, I can give back," he goes on to say. Calvin is also a finalist for a QuestBridge scholarship and says he hopes to research environmentally sustainable technology in his future career.