This annual Spirit of Innovation Challenge from the Conrad Foundation invites high school student teams to use STEM skills to develop the products of tomorrow. Along the way, coaches, world-renowned scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs act as mentors to help turn their ideas into a reality.

This year, participants will develop a product idea centered around one of three product categories: Aerospace Exploration, Clean Energy, or Health and Nutrition.

Aerospace Exploration: This category encompasses any products with reasonable commercial opportunity in the aerospace industry – vehicles, spacesuits, planetary exploration, satellites, space medicine, Earth observation and more. The industry is ripe for new ideas.

Clean Energy: This category includes products or ideas that address energy efficiency; energy storage; solar, geothermal and wind energy; biomass fuels; as well as any other renewable energy solutions.

Health and Nutrition: This category challenges teams to create solutions that address growing more nutritious food with less water and land, creating better eating habits amongst youth and encouraging healthy lifestyles through products and innovations.

Eligibility

Entrant teams must consist of two to five students and have one team coach (adult supervisor) 18 years old or older. All team members must NOT have graduated high school before March 1, 2012. Students must be at least 13 years old at the time of registration and no older than 18. Students may compete in multiple categories. Each team coach must acknowledge that he/she has read and understands the terms and conditions set forth in the competition rules in order for the team to be eligible for any awards. The competition is open internationally; there are no geographic restrictions on eligibility.

Students who have competed in the past may compete again, so long as they still meet the above criteria, and must have made significant advancements or changes to a product, if they opt to submit an innovation similar to what was submitted in a previous year.

The Conrad Foundation reserves the right to disqualify a team at any point in the registration, submission, or judging process if the team does not meet one or more of these rules.

Submission

Each student must be registered on the Spirit of Innovation Challenge online community. Submissions must be entirely the work of the student team members. Team coaches may guide students, but may not do any writing of the submissions and may not have excessive influence on the concept design. (The determination of excessive influence is the sole discretion of the award management team.) Submissions must not copy or use other materials without properly citing the source. General entry, semi-finalist, and finalist teams are responsible for submitting required content on or before posted submission deadlines.

Semi-finalist teams must submit the Technical Concept Report, Business Plan, and Graphical Representation electronically via the Spirit of Innovation Awards submission portal in the online community. A team’s submission will only be considered complete if all three files have been entered by the submission deadline.

For more information and to enter this contest, visit the program’s website.

In addition to the letter and number of the day, Sesame Street will be featuring some exciting new topics in the show’s 42nd season: engineering, science, and math!

Researchers have long noted that students who watch the show as children tend to do better in school, so incorporating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts can be seen as part of a larger effort to boost STEM learning in the U.S.

In an interview with ABC News, the show’s executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente remarked, “It all boils down to a curriculum of asking questions, observing…making a hypothesis, and testing it out.” This season will also see a new role for orange monster Murray with a segment called “Murray’s Science Experiments.”

Whether you have a younger sibling who is curious about engineering, or still enjoy the charming antics of Elmo, Big Bird, and friends, now is a great time to start tuning in to Sesame Street.

Taboo (left) and Will.i.am. (right) perform as the Black Eyed Peas

In the mood for a little inspiration? Then we suggest you tune in to
i.am FIRST: Science is Rock ‘n’ Roll, a special airing this Sunday (August 14) at 7pm ET on ABC.

Created by Black Eyed Peas singer and rapper Will.i.am in collaboration with Dean Kamen’s FIRST Robotics, the program will feature a star-studded lineup including Bono, Jack Black, Miley Cyrus, Snoop Dog, Justin Bieber, and more. Celebrities will discuss the important role that science, technology and engineering has in shaping the modern world, as well as which inventions and inventors inspire them most.

In the mean time, be sure to check out the show’s website, and watch the preview below:

Image:

Walmart/Flickr

Every budding engineer must study advanced mathematics in college or earlier, and to some the prospect is less than exciting. Otherwise capable students might steer clear of science and engineering altogether, just to spare themselves the multi-variable calculus.

Math-aversion has reached epidemic levels in America – recent studies rank the U.S. at the bottom of the developed world when it comes to proficiency in mathematics.

So how can teachers hope to foster enthusiasm for numbers in such an environment? That’s the question driving the Museum of Mathematics (also known as MoMath), a new repository of mathematical delights slated to open in Manhattan next year.

Founder Glen Whitney, a math professor-turned-hedge fund analyst, has dedicated the past few years of his life to alleviating America’s pervasive math-phobia. After quitting his job in 2008, Whitney created a traveling exhibition called the Math Midway (visit the link for info on its whereabouts and free math puzzles). Now he hopes to give the exhibit’s fun, conceptual activities and demonstrations a permanent home at 11 East 26th Street.

Young students solve a polyhedral puzzle at Math Midway

At Math Midway, one of the perennial audience favorites is a square-wheeled tricycle that visitors can ride smoothly over an undulating track. It works thanks to precisely calculated curves that perfectly offset the wheels’ angular shape.

Here’s a brief demonstration:

So far the museum has raised over $22 million from a variety of donors (Google reportedly gave $2 million towards the project). While the museum’s ultimate impact remains to be seen, MoMath’s initial momentum and buzz look good for awakening the math-lover in all of us.

Learn more about MoMath in this interview with Glen Whitney:

Do you like to build big catapults? If so, you should definitely enter this contest!

Design Squad Nation wants you to BUILD BIG. Choose an activity from the DSN Web site, form a team, and build your own super-big version. Then take a video of your working design and upload it to YouTube.

The winning team will receive a Flip Cam and have its project featured on the Design Squad Nation Web site.

You’ll need someone over the age 18 to be your team leader and submit your project, so ask a teacher, a parent, a guardian, a grandparent, or a friend (not your pet!) to get involved.

Deadline: August 2011

Enter here

Image: Bjorn Laczay/Wikimedia

NanoDays

The 2011 annual NanoDays, is coming in the spring, March 26-April 3. It’s not too early to get ready now.

This nationwide festival focuses on educational programs about nanoscale science and engineering and its potential impact on the future. NanoDays events are organized by participants in the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and take place at over 200 science museums, research centers, and universities across the country, from Maine to Hawaii.

Many NanoDays celebrations will combine simple hands-on activities for young people with events exploring current research for adults. One popular 2010 activity involved visitors working together to build a giant balloon model of a carbon nanotube. (Real carbon nanotubes, which are 1/50,000th of the width of a human hair, have extraordinary strength and unusual electrical properties that make them useful in electronics and materials science.)

Other NanoDays activities demonstrate different, unexpected properties of materials at the nanoscale — sand that won’t get wet even under water, water that won’t spill from a teacup, and colors that depend upon particle size.

Some NanoDays participants host public forums, discussions about the risks and benefits of particular appllications of nanotechnology. Many participating universities host public tours of their laboratories that work with nanoscale science and technology.

How to participate:

Being part of NanoDays is easy: host an eventsabout nanoscale science and engineering during NanoDays, March 26 – April 3, 2011. NISE Net can help with materials and ideas, and in return, asks participants to file a report about their events.

Last year, some 200 NanoDays events were held across the country, including hands-on activities and demos, speaker events, theater presentations, art shows, lab tours, lectures, deliberative forums, and science cafes. Through NanoDays, the NISE Network aims to reach audiences across a diverse geographic distribution, people with disabilities, and under-represented audiences in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

What can you do for NanoDays?

You can host a day or a week of activities on the theme of nanoscale science and technology. The NISE network has developed a host of resources to, including products in their online catalog and their NanoDays kits.

The Digital Kit: provide the information about hands-on activities, and include guides and tips to help you stage your NanoDays events, including downloadable guides and printable signage files.

Free online download is available to anyone who registers on nisenet.org, particularly for international locations outside the United States, K-12 educators, libraries, and other educational organizations. Many of the activities use inexpensive, readily available supplies. Contents include a planning guide, marketing materials, and hands-on activity guides with supply lists.

The Physical Kit: physical kits, which will be mailed out in January 2011, are available by request; apply online between October 20 and December 10, 2o10.

Reporting Requirements: If you host or co-organize a NanoDays event, NISE NET requests that you report back to the Network about your experiences. They report this to the National Science Foundation; it also help all of their partners to learn from each other and improve their ability to engage the public. A link to an online reporting form will be provided on the website.

About NISE: The Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) is a national community of researchers and informal science educators dedicated to fostering public awareness, engagement, and understanding of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology.

Young students at an engineering event

Get excited, aspiring engineers – this week is National Engineers Week!

This event is the cornerstone program of the National Engineers Week Foundation, which leads a country-wide celebration of engineering every year.

All programs and workshops are designed to reach out to current and future generations of engineering talent. To find an event near you, check out their website.

This year, to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of Engineers Week, the Foundation is giving special recognition to engineer volunteers. Explore this toolkit for tips on how to get involved, graphics to include on your websites or in print announcements, postcards, posters, and suggestions for outreach opportunities.

The 2011 Engineers Week is February 20-26.

Did you make a really cool science project this year? If not, would you like to? Google certainly hopes so.

This year Google, in partnership with Lego, CERN, National Geographic and Scientific American, is hosting their first global online science fair.

When: Entries are due by 11:59:59 PM EST on Thursday, 7 April, 2011. Register online here.

Who: Registration is open to anyone worldwide aged 13-18.

What: The Grand Prize winner (or winning team) will receive an incredible 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands, along with $50,000 to be used towards the winners’ education. They will also have their choice of internship opportunities with each sponsoring company.

Need more inspiration? Check out this amazing sample entry from Tesca, a U.S. high school student. Her project involves using artificial intelligence to make hospitals more efficient.

Google has also created a Youtube channel for the science fair, which includes this awesome video:

Image: DrBacchus/Flickr

Check out some of our best photos from the festival below:

Specially designed sailboats bob in water.

Kids take aim at a target using catapults.

Robots from FIRST Robotics spar during a soccer game.

A festival-goer feels the hair-raising effects of static electricity

Kids dressed as Rubik’s Cubes promote a contest for solving the puzzles.

LEGO NXT-powered robots battle.

Festival visitors run on top of a liquid made with corn starch.

Visitors stop to have a look through a giant kaleidoscope.

The EPA demonstrates a water filtration system.

A 1/5 scale replica of the Hubble Space Telescope sits in a NASA booth.

Cheerleaders for science pause for an interview.

Photos copyright Jaimie Schock/ASEE. All rights reserved.