For Students

Engineering is a great career choice. Engineers generally get paid pretty well and the demand for engineers is skyrocketing. Engineering is a career for people who are creative, love math and science, and can communicate well. For more information on what engineers do, how to become an engineer, and fun engineering information and activities, check out these websites.

Annual Events

Bridge Building Contest

More than 3,000 local high school students design, build, and test bridges for maximum load as their main objective during this competition. First organized by a few high school physics teachers at Illinois Institute of Technology, this competition is now administered by the International Bridge Building Contest Committee. Contact George Krupa, [email protected], for more information, or visit www.iit.edu/~hsbridge.

DuPage Area Engineers Week

Illinois Institute of Technology's Rice Campus hosted its 19th Annual Engineers Week Expo on Thursday, February 24, 2005 and Saturday, February 26, 2005. This year's theme was the 100th Anniversary of the Wright Brothers first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, NC in December 1903. The past, present and future of aviation were featured in many of the presentations this year.

Other presentation topics included lasers and their applications, experiments in cryogenics, scientific demonstrations by SciTech, ASME's Rube Goldberg competition, and many more programs of interest to all family members.

Representatives of professional societies were available to discuss engineering and science with students who are planning their future education.

Future City Competition

The Chicagoland Engineers Week Committee again sponsored the local 2003 Future City Competition^TM. This annual competition is held for seventh and eighth grade students to foster interest in engineering, math, and science through hands-on computer modeling, essay writing, oral presentation, and model building of the students' Cities of the Future. Forty schools and 200 students from Chicago and the suburbs annually participate in this event.

Chicago is the only city to participate in the competition continuously since its inception in 1992. All engineers are invited to visit the competition; there is no cost to attend.

Contact Don Wittmer, 312/930-9119 or [email protected] for more information. Or visit www.futurecity.org.

JETS TEAMS Competition

Sponsored by the Junior Engineering Technical Society and the U.S. Department of Energy, JETS conducts the "Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science" (TEAMS) program nationally with more than 20,000 high school students participating, including 700 in Chicagoland. Two national champions were from the Chicago area in 1999. Contact Vic Logan, 630/469-5411 or [email protected] if you would like more information. Or visit www.jets.org.

JETS also coordinates NEDC, the National Engineering Design Challenge program. NEDC is a cooperative program with the National Society of Professional Engineers and the National Talent Network challenging students, often working with engineering advisers, to design, fabricate, and demonstrate working solutions to social needs. The JET TEAMS contest is March 2 at IIT Rice Campus and March 9 at the Chicago campus. For more information, visit the JETS web site (www.jets.org).

MathCounts

Math Counts is a program in which seventh and eighth students compete with basic arithmetic skills, math logic, probability, and statistics. Sponsored locally by the National Society of Professional Engineers, the program involves 700 students in the Chicago area and 500,000 nationally. Contact www.mathcounts.org or Laura McGovern, 630/990-0302 x225 for more information.

Other Online Resources

• Chicagoland Engineers Week Activities
  Several of the CEW activities are geared for students - check them out here!
  www.chicagolandeweek.org/activities.asp
• Discover engineering online
  www.discoverengineering.org
• TryEngineering.org
  A resource for students (ages 8-18), their parents, their teachers and their school counselors. This is a portal about engineering and engineering careers to help young people understand better what engineering means, and how an engineering career can be made part of their future.
• TryScience.org
  Your gateway to experience the excitement of contemporary science and technology through on and offline interactivity with science and technology centers worldwide. Science is exciting, and it's for everyone! That's why TryScience and over 400 science centers worldwide invite you to investigate, discover, and try science yourself.
  
• www.asee.org/precollege
  A guide for high school students interested in engineering and engineering technology careers.
• Find out how much engineers make
  www.wageweb.com/eng1.htm
• www.youngeng.org
  Tomorrow's ideas today. The National Network of Science, Engineering, Electronics and Technology Clubs in schools and colleges.
• How Things Work
  howthingswork.virginia.edu/topics.html
• The Why Files-science behind the news
  whyfiles.org
• NASA Quest Kids' Corner
  quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/kids/index.html
  NASA Quest is a rich resource for educators, kids and space enthusiasts who are interested in meeting and learning about NASA people and the national space program.
• Invention Dimension
  web.mit.edu/invent
• The Yuckiest Site on the Internet
  yuckykids.discovery.com
• Welcome to Recycle City
  www.epa.gov/recycylecity
• The Exploratorium
  www.exploratorium.edu
  The museum of science, art and human perception
• A sightseer's guide to engineering
  www.engineeringsights.edu
• Museum of Science and Industry
  www.msichicago.org
• Fermilab's Education Office
  www-ed.fnal.gov/ed_home.html
  science adventures, online instructional material, Fermilabyrinth and more.
• Breaking Through: The Creative Engineer.
  www.eweek.org/2002/nbm/intro.html
• The Boeing Kids' Page
  www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/kids