  Software Engineering concepts such as version control, continuous
integration, and unit testing are often not presented in college computer
science curriculums until the third year of study, after completing several
semesters of programming courses. Throughout the summer of 2023, two high
school students volunteered in our lab at Wayne State University where I'm a
graduate research assistant and Ph.D. student in computer science. The students
had taken AP Computer Science but had no prior experience with software
engineering or software testing. This paper documents our experience devising a
group project to teach the requisite software engineering skills to implement
automated tests that meaningfully contribute to open-source scientific
computing projects developed in connection with our lab. We describe the
concepts covered, tools used, and software tests written in this early
introduction to software engineering while maintaining shared emphases on
education and the deployment of our work.
