Chicago Students Celebrate after 3 Day Engineering Competition

Project SYNCERE (Supporting Youth’s Needs with Core Engineering Research Experiments) hosted a 3-day engineering competition for more than 250 students from 9 schools on Chicago’s South and Westside.  The first two days of the competition consisted of the students designing and building Green Automations using Lego Robotics, aimed at making homes more environmentally friendly. The last day of the competition consisted of the students participating in a ‘shuffleboard challenge.’ This challenge entails 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. Project SYNCERE congratulates all 9 schools but gives special recognition to the top three finalists this year: #1) Charles Sumner Math & Science Community Academy #2) Mariano Azuela Elementary #3) Amelia Earhart School.

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

“I’m so proud of our students and what they were able to accomplish over the last 10 weeks. They were able to collaborate, problem-solve and develop these robots for the challenge within a short amount of time. The ENpowered Games give them the opportunity and confidence to compete on a different level. “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. 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,” said Jason Coleman, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Project SYNCERE.

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