The Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., will be the site of the 17th annual Robotic Technology and Engineering Challenge on May 3-4, 2003. The competition is organized and sponsored by Robotics International of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).
The international event gives individual students and teams from middle schools, high schools, community colleges and universities an opportunity to demonstrate their application of classroom knowledge to real-world activities. The competition, which is designed to complement classroom instruction, allows students to show their knowledge of manufacturing processes and control through 14 manufacturing, robotics and automation contests. Students are judged on their application of manufacturing principles and concepts and their ability to solve manufacturing-related problems through a team approach.
According to SME, the 2002 event attracted more than 250 teams, totaling more than 600 students and instructors from 10 states, as students and instructors interacted and learned from one another as well as from engineering professionals.
The registration fee is $50 per school plus $15 per event.
Kathy Carter with SME notes that they are always looking for people who might want to help with the event. ?We?re always looking for people in industry to help out as judges, facilitators or mentors,? says Carter.
For more information, contact Carter by telephone at 313-271-1500, extension 1704, or by e-mail at kcarter@sme.org, or visit www.sme.org.
More and more career and technical education professionals are discovering the Professional Speaker Series offered by the National Dissemination Center for Career and Technical Education (www.nccte.org).
This unique resource can be utilized through live or archived webcasts and features the latest topics?allowing teachers to connect with some of the country?s most talented and knowledgeable CTE professionals without ever leaving their home districts.
According to Lynne Hall of the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center, her district has used the webcasts three times this year to expand their professional development offerings.
?I had the opportunity to participate in one of the early webcasts this year on ?What Makes a Good Teacher,?? says Hall. ?This session featured a panel of National Board-Certified Teachers who discussed the certification process and gave tips for successfully developing a portfolio. We have been able to use this webcast with teacher candidates in a support group for National Board Certification hosted here at our school.?
The technology allows that once a session is archived, it can be retrieved at any time for a group meeting or for teachers to view individually. All that is necessary is a computer with a media player.
Hall says her district?s professional development committee also used the webcasts to update their staff on policy, trends and national legislation.
?With the decrease in state leadership in Ohio,? says Hall, ?it is often not possible to hear of this information at meetings or through other means.?
At their technology center in Bellefontaine, Ohio, they offered a live broadcast of the session, ?New Designs for Career and Technical Education.? The webcast appeared on a 15-foot screen and participants were able to submit questions to the speaker that were answered later in the program.
Hall says the interactive nature of the webcasts is an exciting prospect for receiving specific information from speakers. Because the Web site provides discussion questions and accompanying activities, Ohio Hi-Point Career Center was able to offer CEUs for all activities held in their facility.
The other time the Center used this technology was to view a segment of the program, ?Best Practices in Education for Adolescents with Chronic Illness and Disabilities.? They developed a four-hour after-school professional development series using both speakers from regional special education centers and a portion of the archived webcast.
One of the most exciting developments this year was a live webcast from the ACTE Convention in Las Vegas, and there are many interesting sessions coming up (see box).
This new technology is a great answer to the challenge of keeping CTE staff up to date on topics, trends and issues in our field without investing travel time, expenses or substitute teacher pay. Why not take advantage of this excellent resource for professional development in your district, school or facility?
The year 2003 marks the centennial of flight, and to commemorate the event, Space Day is launching a series of activities honoring the previous 100 years of aviation and aerospace accomplishments. Space Day, the award-winning educational initiative, also hopes to provide encouragement to the next generation of inventors, aviators and explorers with its events and activities leading up to the celebration on May 1, 2003, of Space Day 2003...Celebrating the Future of Flight.
Senator John Glenn, who already has a bit of firsthand knowledge about space, is co-chair of Space Day. ?The aviation and space exploration pioneers of this last century look to our youth to take the next steps in humankind?s celestial journeys,? says Glenn. ?These students, who represent our future space pioneers, will one day realize exciting possibilities that we can only now imagine.?
Among this year?s Space Day programs are:
- , in which students actively collaborate as they create solutions to challenges of living and working in space. For students in grades four through eight, Fly to the Future offers the challenge of building a model aircraft of the future, and Planetary Explorers challenges students to build a working model spacecraft that can fly on Earth but has characteristics that will allow it to fly on another planet or moon in our solar system. In Watt Power, students build a working model aircraft that can remain airborne using a renewable energy source.
- sends digitized student signatures on a space shuttle mission.
- is the only annual webcast entirely devoted to science, space and math.
The Space Day initiative was established in 1997 and is dedicated to the advancement of science, math, engineering and technology by inspiring young people to realize the vision of our space pioneers. Partners of the initiative include technology and aerospace companies, as well as educational, nonprofit and government organizations.
For educator resources and information, visit www.spaceday.com, which also includes some fun animation.
The Council for Corporate and School Partnerships has released Guiding Principles for Business and School Partnerships, a report that describes the elements of the most successful education partnerships. The report cites BE&K as a national role model because of its innovative approach to implementing the partnerships, its decades-long activity in schools and its hands-on approach to solution delivery.
BE&K has created special educational programs built around the celebration of National Engineers? Week and Women in Construction Week (see ?Not Just a Guy Thing? in the January 2002 issue of Techniques), and last year the company expanded its activities with a school-based partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters in which mentors provide after-school tutoring for at-risk children.
Among their other activities, BE&K Construction built a schoolyard roof to protect children from the sun during lunch in the desert town of Plaster City, Calif., and BE&K Engineering in Mobile, Ala., built access ramps for elementary students who had to move among trailers.
BE&K, a construction and engineering firm based in Birmingham, Ala., is a member of the ACTE Business-Education Partnership. For more information, visit www.bek.com.
The Council for Corporate and School Partnerships, which is chaired by former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, works to identify and support exemplary business-school relationships that improve the student experience.
