Today after-school after writing a STEAM essay, taking a multitude of practice tests, and model building my three teams are finally ready for the on-site afternoon of building and test taking. TEAMS is a competition designed to engage students in engineering and to show them how math and science are used to make tangible difference in the world. This competition provides career resources and experiences often found in traditional learning environments: brain storming, design, tinkering, collaboration and implementation.
This competition TSA: TEAMS changes yearly. Focused on a particular theme each year allows for original academic and innovative concepts to be integrated into challenging design builds. This year the theme is Engineering and the Environment. The topics for research were: alternative energy sources, solar-powered cars, smart-houses and transportation safety mechanisms. Each of my teams chose a different topic on which to research and write an essay. This essay was submitted on-line a week ago. Today, the day of the competition, they applied their knowledge as a team to complete a 40 question math and science multiple choice exam on the topics about the designated theme. They had 1-hour to complete the exam. Then they moved on to the building portion of the competition.
Finally, each team built a robotic arm (not having the topic prior to this afternoon) using specific materials: metal hangars, binder clips, yarn, twine, paper clips, pencils, masking tape etc. Then the robotic arm had to make an object into the designated target. They had 75 minutes to build and 2 minutes at the target table to practice before their final run. Their score was calculated using a specific rubric. Then all scoring materials were scanned into the computer and emailed AND were returned over-night back to the competition judges. Now the essays, build and tests are done and we just have to wait for the results to see if we qualify for Nationals/Best in State in Orlando in June.
This is another amazing competition I have with my students. Anytime I can help bring my students into the world of STEAM and science I will. I love to build relationships with my students outside of the classroom as well as inside the classroom. This was an awesome experience of collaboration, peer support, and team-building that I think all students in the sciences should compete in. As with Quiz Bowl and Future City competitions we participate in, this is both unique, challenging and fun which is what after-school clubs should be all about.
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