Earlier this week, Raytheon's MathMovesU announced the winners of the Build it Better contest, a competition encouraging students to put on their engineering hats, pick anything (large or small) from school life and describe how it could be redesigned for a better school experience. The response was incredible. Across the United States, students were submitting videos and diagrams detailing their project ideas. From all of the submissions, just 10 finalists were selected. Their project ideas were posted to Facebook and open for public voting. The three winning teams reflect the creativity, ingenuity and innovation that MathMovesU is all about.
Needham High School student Liam Walsh's proposal to redesign bike racks that would protect bicycles from vandalism and precipitation, and make the bikes more convenient to the school's entrance earned him third place honors. In second place were three high-schoolers from New Jersey - Lanre Danmola, Jordan Donald and Charles Dowd from Columbia High School. The trio came up with a "one-swipe whiteboard eraser" that would save time in the classroom for teachers and enable student's to have more learning time.
In first place, though, was Ohio fifth-grader Jonathon Drawford from Tri-Village Elementary. The young student developed a plan to alleviate long lunch lines - an iPad app!
The creators of the winning ideas took home classroom grants. The contest was run by Raytheon's MathMovesU, as part of their larger mission to engage students in STEM subjects through hands-on activities, educational outreach and social interaction.
Check out all of the finalist project videos - including the top three - here!
Late Friday, will.i.am was welcomed at the FIRST Robotics Championship to the roar of 30,000 attendees in St. Louis. For FIRST participants, will.i.am isn't a famous pop star, he's their biggest supporter.
will.i.am's support for STEM has led his to do everything from broadcast his songs into space with NASA to donate his time and money to The Science Museum in London. Despite all these other efforts, FIRST has clearly always inspired him most. As he was presented with the inaugural "Make It Loud" Award last week, he credited the FIRST students as his largest inspiration for going back to college to study computer science. In his address to the crowd, and later in the day at a press conference, will.i.am continued to encourage today's youth to pursue STEM careers.
For will.i.am, "Make It Loud" is important to getting the message out that STEM and events like FIRST Robotics are what's really cool. He drew on his personal experience when he explained that famous people now weren't always "cool" when they were kids, but because they dedicated themselves to their craft, they were able to create success for themselves. This message should be applied to student expressing themselves through making and inventing things.
Read Tommy Cornelis' full post on will.i.am on STEMblog and view even more pictures of will.i.am at the event.
Take a look at will.i.am accepting the "Make It Loud" Award at the FIRST Robotics Championships.
