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Contests and Awards (Print This) | |
A number of organizations sponsor contests and award programs intended to interest students in science, engineering, and technology. The majority of these involve participants in a combination of design, construction, and problem-solving activities. One of the most well known of contests is the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which has been administered by Science Service since 1952. Each year, several million students compete in local, state, and regional fairs around the world. Finalists vie for prizes in 15 categories, including engineering. The top two contestants receive all-expense-paid trips to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.
Several contests attempt to attract participants through robotics. The FIRST Robotics Competition, begun by inventor Dean Kamen in the early 1990s, for example, challenges teams of high school students and engineers to design and build a robot that can defeat another robot in some kind of a game. The competition attracts more than 500 teams each year. In 1998, FIRST initiated FIRST LEGO League, a contest for middle school children using LEGO building blocks, sensors, motors, and gears.
Real-world problem solving is the focus of the TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) Contest, sponsored by the Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS). Roughly 1,700 four-to-eight person teams participated last year. Odyssey of the Mind and the Future Problem Solving Contest also emphasize creative problem-solving skills, but students do not participate in hands-on, design-and-build activities.
The National Engineering Design Challenge, sponsored by JETS and several other organizations, encourages the creation of products with practical applications. The finals of this competition, which attracts about 80 teams from around the country, are held in conjunction with National Engineers Week. In the Future City Competition, also part of National Engineers Week, students design a city of the future using SimCity software, build a scale model of part of the city, and propose a solution to a technological problem facing the city.
No one has attempted to assess the impact of these contests on student learning or future career choices. Some attitudinal or anecdotal information is available about student participants, their parents, teachers, and coaches. A FIRST survey of participants in the robotics competition found, for example, that 70 percent of the students became more interested in science, and an equal percentage of their parents believe the contest experience was a factor in their children wanting to attend engineering school.
More contests and awards are listed in the Resources and Links section.
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