Hundreds of Chicago Students Participate in a 3 Day Engineering Competition to Help Make Homes More Eco-Friendly and Develop a Robot Shuffleboard Game in This Year’s Fifth Annual ENpowered Games

 

Hundreds of Chicago Students Participate in a 3 Day Engineering Competition to Help Make Homes More Eco-Friendly and Develop a Robot Shuffleboard Game in This Year’s Fifth Annual ENpowered Games

 

Project SYNCERE (Supporting Youth's Needs with Core Engineering Research Experiments) will host its 5th annual ENpowered Games event on May 4th, 5th and 6th. This year there are two challenges; 1) Design and build Green Automations using Lego Roboticss, aimed at making homes more environmentally friendly and 2) Design a robot to play a unique game of shuffleboard. The ENpowered Games competition attracts hundreds of middle school students from across Chicago’s South and West sides, allowing them to showcase their knowledge and skills against other students, and may the best engineer win.

“We want underrepresented youth to know they can not only compete, but excel in the fields of Engineering and in STEM fields in general. The ENpowered Games gives them the opportunity and confidence to do so,” said Jason Coleman, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Project SYNCERE.

The ENpowered Games is the culmination of a 10-week program in which students have learned about engineering careers, how to apply the engineering design process and mastery of specific engineering skill. This year’s competition will bring togethestudents from 9 Chicago area schools.

The first two days of the competition will consist of the students using their engineering skills to design and build a robot to play in a shuffle board competition. This challenge consists of designing, building and testing a robot that automatically finds cups on a playing field and pushes them into a series of zones to gain the most points. They will also present their Green Smart Home designs. The final day of the competition will serve as the closing ceremony and celebration of the student participants. On May 6th we will announce the winners of this year’s competition while highlighting the work that they accomplished over the year.

“I’m excited we’ve been able to put this challenge on for FIVE years now and this year we wanted to make it unique and special. It will be three days of invigorating competition, creativity and innovation. We are extremely grateful for the help of our sponsors who have allowed us to keep this competition going, thus allowing us to continue building a pipeline for future engineers and STEM leaders,” says Coleman.

This year’s game sponsors include: The Boeing Company, ComEd, Peoples Gas, Molex, Polk Brothers Foundation, The Donley Foundation, Millhouse Charities, ArcelorMittal, Lenovo, U.S. Department of Education and Rogers Family.

About Project SYNCERE

Project SYNCERE (Supporting Youth’s Needs with Core Engineering Research Experiments) is a non-profit whose mission is to prepare the minds of underrepresented student and create pathways for them to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Project SYNCERE was founded in 2009 by three African American men, who witnessed first-hand the lack of ethnic diversity in their fields of engineering. They leveraged their expertise in engineering to begin Project SYNCERE, which has now served over 25,000 Chicago students since its inception.

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