About the Project
Who Gets to Build?
A Documentary, Archive & Open-Source Platform on Engineering Access, Identity, and the Broken Entry Point into STEM
The Core Idea
Most people aren't leaving STEM because they're not smart enough — they're leaving because the system was never designed for them.
Who Gets to Build? is a multimedia passion project that investigates why people get pushed out of engineering, reframes what engineering actually looks like, and then does something about it by building a beginner platform so anyone can find their way in.
Research cited by Nevada STEM leaders found that about 1 in 3 children lose interest in science by fourth grade. Additionally, Nevada reported that only 38% of elementary schools offered dedicated STEM instruction during the school day, highlighting the need for stronger early STEM exposure.
Four Interlocking Parts
Each piece reinforces the others — investigation, documentation, education, and curiosity working together.
The Documentary
A short-film series combining interviews, split-screen photography, and data visualization. Follow students with different levels of access to STEM, capture their environments, and layer in statistics and personal quotes.
The Dream
What engineering promises
The Reality
Who gets left out and why: burnout, cost, lack of representation, bad teaching
What Could Change
A vision for accessible engineering education
The Story Archive
A living, visual archive of real people who quit STEM — or almost did. Photographs in their actual environments. Short interviews. Graphic design surfacing key quotes and data. Individual stories become collective evidence.
Entry Lab
A beginner-friendly learning platform for coding, electricity, mechanics, and more. Built from the documented chaos of trying to learn from scratch — the jargon, the dead ends, the gaps — transformed into something accessible.
Dissected
An Engineering Autopsy Series
Take everyday objects — a cheap earphone, a smoke detector, a disposable camera — and destroy them on purpose. Photograph every layer, every component, every wire. Turn the wreckage into something that looks more like art than a textbook.
The question driving each piece isn't "how does this work?" — it's "who had to think of this, and why don't we know their name?"
Why Dissected Is Different
Most "how things work" content explains mechanisms. Dissected is about restoring credit and curiosity — making the viewer feel like engineering is something humans did, not something that just exists.
What It Looks Like
- Flat-lay photography of disassembled objects, styled like fashion editorials
- Illustrated diagrams drawn over actual photos
- Short pieces tracing the engineering decision-making
The Running Theme
Anonymous engineers built everything around you, and engineering is invisible until you break something open. Every episode asks: could you have solved this problem?
The answer is always designed to feel like maybe yes.
About the Founder
Cadence Luh
Founder of WGTB
A student, robotics team member, and aspiring engineer documenting the stories, systems, and barriers that shape who gets to build.
“I love engineering. But there were moments when I wasn't sure I belonged in it. This project started as a question about my own experience—and became an exploration of who gets the opportunity to build, create, and stay.”
About Our Partners
Minorities in STEM
Non-Profit Organization
We are a community whose mission is to bridge the opportunity gap in STEM.
“Rooted in Diversity, Growing Through STEM. We're building a future where every voice in STEM is heard, valued, and empowered.”