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E-Week
Spotlight:
IEEE-USA Bestows
First 'Best Communications System' Award on Oklahoma
Middle Schoolers
by Chris McManes
Despite
earning a free trip to the nation’s capital, three students from
Medford (Oklahoma) Public School were finding it difficult to stay
encouraged during the Future City national competition last month.
The
team of middle
schoolers had captured the Oklahoma regional
championship less than a month before, but that triumph seemed
like a distant memory as they watched team after team be
recognized for special awards. Having competed in the preliminary
round as one of 21 teams, they hadn’t made the top-five cut to
compete for the national championship. Now it looked as though
they were going to go home empty-handed.
But
when IEEE-USA’s Best Communications System award winner was
announced, defeated shrugs transformed into proud smiles from the
team known simply as "Oklahoma." They accepted
IEEE-USA’s recognition for designing the "most efficient
and accurate communications system" gladly.
Medford’s
communications network was part of their future city, Marzopia,
which they envisioned to be in the middle of Mars in the year
17,945. Their creative vision of communication saw people thinking
about what they wanted to say and having those thoughts
transmitted from a chip embedded in their brains to one in their
hands. There, a Holo-Com device would pick up the signal and send
it to another person. Both users could look into their palms to
view a hologram of the other person.
"This
award really helped the kids’ egos," said Steve McDonald,
who served as the team’s engineer mentor. "They were
feeling a little bit rejected. This award has given the students
something to take home and show for all of their hard work."
Medford,
a K-12 school of about 300 students in north central Oklahoma,
advanced to the national finals by winning the Oklahoma regional
title in Oklahoma City on 20 January. Team members Michelle Jones,
13; Paige Hagerman, 13; and Jordan Dye, 12 were coached by
McDonald and his wife Dana, a seventh- and eighth-grade math
teacher at Medford, who served as the team’s teacher-sponsor.
"This
is a nice academic achievement to add to some of the athletic
achievements the school has had," Steve said.
"Opportunities to recognize academic achievements don’t
come along often. It’s nice for IEEE-USA and other groups to
sponsor awards like this."
IEEE-USA
President Dr. Ned Sauthoff and
David Pierce, IEEE-USA Professional Activities chair, presented
each team member with a plaque. All national competition
participants received a $100 U.S. Savings Bond.
The
Future City Competition, introduced to National
Engineers Week by IEEE-USA in 1993, encourages the next
generation of engineers. Seventh- and eighth-grade students create
their own vision of a city of tomorrow, working first on computer
and then constructing three-dimensional scale models. An estimated
26,000 students participated nationwide in this year’s program.
For
information on the 2001-2002 Future City Competition, visit the
Future City web site at: www.futurecity.org.
Chris
McManes is the Marketing/Public Relations Coordinator for IEEE-USA
in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at c.mcmanes@ieee.org.
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