Science Olympiad is a STEM outreach program to train and mentor middle & high school students on electricity on order to help them compete in the Science Olympiad electrical events.
For the past five years, the Delaware Bay Section has sponsored electrical events for both the middle school and high school Science Olympiad Tournaments in Delaware. This sponsorship included the development of hands-on kits of electrical components such as motors, generators, transformers, LEDs, switches and multimeters for the students to use in lab exercises. We also developed Power Point presentations on a wide variety of electrical characteristics, electrical uses and electrical safety. This training material was all focused on the electrical features covered in the Science Olympiad Circuit Lab event rules as published each year. (When the electrical events were cycled out of the national list, we wrote our own Delaware event called Wonders of Electricity to continue our outreach.)
In partnership with the University of Delaware Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, we hosted several three hour Workshops on campus where the students were introduced to the electrical subjects and then demonstrated various concepts using the kits. The free Workshops attracted approximately 100 students each year and were mentored by 6 to 10 IEEE members at each session. All feedback from the students and attending parents & coaches was extremely positive and complimentary.
For the Delaware Science Olympiad tournaments, the Delaware Bay Section engineers wrote the tests on electrical knowledge and developed lab problems using the kits for both middles school and high school and then supervised the events at the tournaments. Typically about 160 students competed in the electrical Science Olympiad events each year; and those who attended the Workshops stood out over those who had not.
The development of this outreach program was the brainchild of Wayne Lu and Gordon Lipscy, both members of the Delaware Bay Section XCOMM. Gordon was also on the governing Board of Delaware Science Olympiad. In 2018, Gordon was elected State Director of Delaware Science Olympiad and attended the National Science Olympiad Tournaments at Colorado State University where the rules for Circuit Lab were being updated for inclusion on the event list for 2019.
Before heading to Colorado, Gordon approached IEEE Headquarters in New Jersey about having IEEE sponsor the Science Olympiad Circuit Lab events in 2019. This would involve paying a sponsorship fee and providing two $1000 scholarships for the winning high school team mates in return for having the IEEE name on the Circuit Lab rules in front of at least 16,000 students from all 50 states who would compete on 8,000 teams at regional and state tournaments prior to the National Tournaments. The IEEE logo would also be on the National Science Olympiad Home page as a sponsor. (https://www.soinc.org/ )
Elizabeth Kurzawa of the IEEE Educational Outreach Organization signed up for the 2019 sponsorship before the 2018 National Tournaments had started so IEEE was a hero at the Science Olympiad Physics Rules Committee deliberations where Gordon was welcomed as a new member and joined three other Committee members who are also IEEE members.
After the Circuit Lab rules for 2019 were updated and issued, Russ Burleson, one of the IEEE members on the Physics Rules Committee, took it upon himself to write a series of Power Point presentations covering all of the electrical concepts in the rules Those presentations are at: https://www.soinc.org/circuit-lab-c
Furthermore, Russ developed a series of youtube videos on the same subjects. They are at: https://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceOlympiadTV These videos have had over 30,000 hit.
For the 2019 National Tournaments at Cornell University, Gordon, as Delaware State Director, was invited to help supervise the high school Circuit Lab event. Gordon accepted, but also nominated Wayne and his grad student son Aric Lu who have both supervised the electrical events in Delaware. All were accepted and worked the tournament on June 1.
Burt Dicht from IEEE Educational Outreach manned a booth at the Cornell STEM EXPO as part of the IEEE sponsorship and had lots of interested students drop by. Burt was not available on Saturday evening for the awards ceremony so Gordon was asked to present the IEEE scholarships to the two winners from Thomas Jefferson H. S. for Science & Technology in Virginia. The National Tournaments award medals from 1st through 6th place and all Circuit Lab medalists were presented with an IEEE portfolio.
The Circuit Lab events are continuing on the 2020 event list and IEEE is planning to continue the sponsorship for 2020. All IEEE Sections in all 50 states effectively have an open invitation to mentor local teams of middle and high school students, provide workshops, and support or run Circuit Lab events at regional and state tournaments.
You can find out how to get in on the fun by contacting your state Science Olympiad organization at: https://www.soinc.org/join/state-websites .
Training sessions at UD; Tutors work with middle and high school competitors
Gordon Lipscy explains electricity fundamentals Competitors at Science Olympiad 2019
Proctors Wayne Lu and Bill Steward at Science Olympiad 2019