Opportunity for Community Outreach: Real World Design Challenge Finals

Tom Noyes
 The National Finals will take place in Washington, DC on April 19-22. Volunteers are needed on April 20. OVERVIEW

The Real World Design Challenge (RWDC) is an annual high school competition run by a public-private partnership with the goal of sustainably increasing the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce. The partners are focused on working within the context of the American educational system to transform STEM education in the United States by providing professional science and engineering and learning resources to students and teachers.

The RWDC began in 2008 through a partnership between industry, government, academia, and non-profit. The partners were committed to bringing a program to schools that brought professional engineering resources into the classroom, was free to participate in, and could scale to every school in the United States. The partners brought together $263 million in resources and began working with governors to build an infrastructure of states to scale across the United States. The first year, ten states participated. And we have added states every year.

Every teacher that participates in the RWDC gets $1 million in professional engineering software along with training, curriculum materials, and access to mentors. Teams of 3-7 high school students use these resources to solve an engineering challenge that is currently faced by industry.

Students first compete in a state level Governor’s Cup. The team with the best design in each state gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC to compete in the national finals.

The Challenges have all been focused on the aerospace industry so far, but as the RWDC grows, we will add other content areas as well. We are constantly looking for new partner organizations, states, and school teams to participate. See website: http://www.realworlddesignchallenge.org/

Lisa Bacon needs judges as well as college students to interact with the high school kids while their projects are scored. Lisa's contact info:

Lisa W. Bacon

[mailto:LisaB@aiaa.org LisaB@aiaa.org]

AIAA

1801 Alexander Bell Drive, #500

Reston,VA 20191

Phone: 703-264-7527

Fax: 703-264-7551

www.aiaa.org