Power Grid Engineering (PGE) is mentoring mentor middle school students at Lammersville Unified School District (LUSD) and preparing them for a nationwide competition. Future City, a program of DiscoverE, is one of the nation’s leading engineering education programs and has received national recognition for its role in encouraging students to develop their interest in STEM. This year's theme is "Powering Our Future."
As part of the competition, students will design a resilient power grid for their future city that can withstand and quickly recover from the impacts of a natural disaster. The regional competitions will take place on February 19, 2019.
“All children deserved to be challenged. This competition is designed to do just that," says Kristin Eaquinto, coordinator of instruction and technology integration at LUSD. "Students get to create, design, build a model and present a city 100 years in the future. Every year there is a new engineering challenge that the students need to innovate and incorporate into their future city. This year, we are lucky to have a mentor from PGE to ask questions and guide our research on resilient power grids.“
Varun Chauhan, test engineer supervisor at Power Grid Engineering, says it’s important to foster interest in STEM at an early age.
"All indicators point to a future where careers directly or indirectly require a foundation in STEM," Chauhan says. "I am fortunate to have had mentors in my life from an early age that helped pique my interest in academia and in STEM particularly. Early exposure to young minds in STEM will benefit them greatly as it will foster creativity, logical deduction, solution-driven focus and abundant possibilities in their career choices. I want to give back to the new generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians who will pave the way for a brighter future, using STEM to solve complex problems related to climate change, food, energy and water shortages, human conflict and diseases."
For more information, visit the Power Grid Engineering Web site or the Web site for the Future City competition.
