About Us

Table Of Contents
  1. Overview
  2. A Short History
  3. The Team

Overview

Ascendly is a social enterprise dedicated to teaching kids, at an early age, about how things work. We use cool kits and projects to help elementary school aged kids to gain both the confidence and the competence to build great things.

While we have started small, our vision is to build a program that…

  • Is based on a curriculum that is age appropriate, engaging, and full of learning opportunities
  • Is available to kids from K-6 grades
  • Is built off a scalable platform that will enable us to reach kids across the country, including students in the inner city and rural areas

We know – it sounds ambitious. But we are passionate about building an organization that will encourage kids to pursue science and engineering as they grow up.

Sound interesting? For more information, read our blog and check out our website.

A Short History

Started in 2009 by JJ Rohrer, Ascendly began life as a simple PTA sponsored LEGO club, putting together LEGO education kits, but soon morphed into an after-school engineering program.  Ascendly aspires to create a scalable engineering program to reach worldwide. The courses and their respective procedures were designed based on firsthand experience teaching the course in several Fairfax County schools, all the while re-engineering the courses themselves for repeatability, efficacy, scalability, and enjoyability.

2009

Simple Beginning

JJ Rohrer, Ascendly began life as a simple PTA sponsored engineering LEGO club at Waynewood ES. Starting with LEGO Education kits, crazy machines are built.

2009
2010

Jr. Structural Engineering

Steering away from instruction books, Jr. Structural Engineering is developed to focus kids on structures and the engineering design process. Kits are largely limited to two types of bricks which which focuses the kids on the structure, instead of finding just-the-right-piece, and it makes clean-up a snap.

2010
2011

First New School, and Back-to-Back classes

Ascendly expands to Fort Hunt ES. And unlike our first school, not only does Fort Hunt offer scheduled classes four days a week, but also offers back-to-back classes. This is our first exposure to a robust after-school enrichment program.

2011
2012

Electrical Engineering

This is Timeline description, you can change me anytime click here

2012
2013

Broad Expansion

Ascendly adds LEGO Creative Construction, LEGO Engineering Challenges, Wooden Creative Engineering, and more, while expanding from Virginia to Maryland, and Massachusetts.

2013
March 2020

Pandemic

Staying cooped up accelerates our move towards online classes.

March 2020
June 2020

Virtual Camps

Ascendly begins offering its first online summer camps

June 2020

The Team

Lori Pereira

Lori raised to regional prominence by providing Ascendly classes, via Starbright Enrichment, to the greater DC area, reaching more than 75 schools and providing more than 400 classes to thousands of elementary students. Lori enjoys intimate familiarity with the needs of schools, PTOs, and home-school groups throughout DC, VA, MD, & PA. When not organizing STEM classes, she spends time with her two children and two new puppies.

JJ Rohrer

JJ started as Ascendly’s primary teacher and course developer.  He brings a broad engineering background from his US Air Force Academy training and his MS in Computer Systems. After the Air Force, JJ performed simulation and process consulting, as well as being involved in several start-ups and small businesses.  While part of a pilot Carnegie-Mellon acquisition auditing team, his team was specifically referenced by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board as a model for NASA to emulate.  When not testing his teaching techniques on his children, JJ enjoys developing apps for the iPhone.  JJ has an MBA from Harvard Business School.