Project Lead The Way

What vexes you? An RFP of a different kind

Preparing the next generation of engineers

Thanks to KC STEM Alliance sponsors, 5,700 engineering notebooks are on their way to PLTW students across the metro. After breaking enrollment records in 2015-16, we expect the numbers to continue to climb this school year as more districts add Launch at the elementary level and growth continues at the middle and high school levels. Read more.

Learn more about how KC STEM Alliance supports Project Lead The Way.

Get ready to rumble: 
FIRST game reveals start next week!

Registration is open for Perry Outreach Program

KC STEM Alliance is bringing the Perry Outreach Program back to Kansas City for the fifth year on Saturday, October 1, at MCC Penn Valley's Health Science Institute.

This free, one-day, hands-on experience is for high school and college-aged women who are interested in pursuing careers in medicine and engineering. Students will hear from women leaders in these fields and try it for themselves by performing mock orthopedic surgeries and biomechanics experiments.

The application deadline is Thursday, Sept. 1, so please spread the word! Participants should be women in grades 10 and up with an expressed interest in science, medicine and/or engineering.

Applicants should fill out our online application before Sept. 1, using this link: http://perryinitiative.org/prog…/student-online-application/.

For a flyer you can share with students, click here.

Summer of STEM: Hire KC Youth

Girls App Camp Series in Review

 
Teach a girl to make an app and what do you get? The sky’s the limit if this summer’s series of all-girl app camps is any indication. Over the course of four camps conducted at the KC EZ as part of the Girls in Tech KC initiative, students created everything from games to a mental first aid kit to help with positive thinking.
 
Getting hands on with technology was just one aspect of the experience. Over the course of four camps, 26 women from nine organizations came to hear the participants present their apps and to share some of their own experiences about working in the tech world. Misty Collins (pictured above) is a software engineer at Cerner and volunteered 40 hours of her Cerner-sponsored sabbatical to help KC STEM Alliance with the camps.


Carrying the Girls in Tech torch forward 
Previous Girls App Camp participant Ruby Rios (above left), now a student at Bishop Miege High School, was so moved by her experiences that she not only volunteered throughout the summer, but she also will launch a Girls Who Code Club at the KC EZ this fall. Stay tuned for more of Ruby's story and the club's launch, tentatively set for late September.

Eagle Scout project improves KC EZ work space

Things are a bit quieter in the KC Engineering Zone these days, thanks to an Eagle Scout project by Life Scout Andrew Bauer. Three FIRST Robotics teams have used KC STEM Alliance’s KC EZ as their build space for two seasons now and have had rave reviews for the safe, comfortable and spacious facility. But with 50-some high school students working together with machinery operating, the sound reverberation made it difficult to concentrate on programming and other studious tasks and the overall noise level was fatiguing.
 
Andrew, a Life Scout with Troop 257, chose KC STEM Alliance as his nonprofit benefactor and worked with University of Missouri-Kansas City staff and industry professionals to map out his plans. Jeff Teel, an acoustic engineer with Henderson Engineering, taught Andrew about sound absorption products and the calculations needed to determine the ideal square footage for maximum sound absorption. Keith Phillips of JE Dunn provided guidance on installation and Foundation Building Materials donated $3,500 worth of surplus Tectum Finale panels to the project.
 
With fellow scouts contributing labor, Andrew and his team spray painted the panels to match, moved each 40-pound panel from the warehouse to the site, and installed the panels on KC EZ’s walls just before school began. Although a formal post-test is yet to be complete, staff working in the space can already tell it’s making a difference. Thanks, Andrew, for using your STEM skills to improve this STEM learning space!