Future City is an engaging engineering competition for middle school students. It's one of the most affordable STEM team competitions around and has a low barrier to entry. I attended the Future City finals in Washington, D.C. a couple of years ago to provide social media coverage. I was impressed by what I learned and the people I met--students, teachers and engineers. It's a powerful STEM learning opportunity, especially this year! Yes, the ... [ Read More ]
All Maker Mom posts with the tag STEM competitions
The Best List of STEM Competitions for Students
STEM competitions are a great way to build friendships and have fun while building STEM skills. Below you'll find an awesome list of science, engineering, and robotics competitions for middle and high school students to help you find the right one for your child. ... [ Read More ]
Meet Maanasa Mendu: America’s Top Young Scientist of 2016
Maanasa Mendu is the winner of the 2016 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge for 5-8th graders. As a result, she earned the title of America’s Top Young Scientist for her energy-harvesting invention. In addition to that flattering title, she won $25,000, a chance to work with a 3M scientist mentor and other prizes. I thought you'd all like to get to know her a bit better. Please note that this is not a sponsored post, but I'm a ... [ Read More ]
VEX Robotics Starstruck and Updates
Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of extracurricular STEM clubs and competitions. They build interest, knowledge, skills and add an exciting element to STEM study. This is especially true when it comes to robotics where STEM becomes a spectator sport, something that can't be said for math team. VEX Robotics Competitions I started a VEX Robotics team five years ago at the urging of my son. Thanks to a grant, I was able to start a team for ... [ Read More ]
I’m VEX Bound!
One of the great things about blogging for a long period of time is that Google has access to your memories, which is how I'm able to tell you exactly how I felt walking into my son's first robotics tournament with "The Makers" VEX robotics team in December of 2012. When I saw the scissor lifts, the pneumatic lifts, plexiglass-like shovels and complex machines that we never even imagined, I thought, “This is going to be embarrassing.” Sure, we’d ... [ Read More ]
Meet Delaney Rua, Creator of the Women in Tech App
A while back I told you about the second annual Congressional App Challenge and now I'm pleased to introduce you to one of the winners, Delaney Rua, a high school student from Gainesville, Florida. As is unfortunately common, Delaney found herself in a AP Computer Science class full of boys. She wanted to empower more girls to not only take the class, but to be open to pursuing careers in technology. She figured that exposing girls to role ... [ Read More ]
Technovation at Lane Tech
You may recall that I posted about the Technovation Challenge last year. Technovation is a competition for girls in middle and high school that seeks to build and support the pipeline for girls in technology. The program is about more than technology, though. It also has a strong focus on business with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. Girls do not need to have programming experience to participate and there are no entry fees. Teams are judged ... [ Read More ]