Subject:
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'97 Intel ISEF
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.handyboard
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Date:
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Sat, 17 May 1997 02:57:25 GMT
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Original-From:
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katt97@aol.+IHateSpam+com
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Viewed:
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1373 times
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This last week was the 1997 Intel International Science and Engineering
Fair (ISEF), held in Louisville, Kentucky. While I don't have a list of
winners/losers, I do have some things to say about it.
There were five robots in the engineering section, three in the team
section, and one or two in the computer science section...or at least that
many projects whose titles implied robotics in it. Of those nine or ten
projects, three or four won awards -- all in the engineering section. My
project was in the engineering-miscellaneous category; I purposely put myself
in the wrong category because my project had little to do with electronical
engineer, which is where the people who divided the categories into
subcategories deemed robotics to go. I was penalized for doing what I had
done, but that is not important to me.
What is important, however, was the way engineering, in general, was
judged. As most of you know, there are several branches of engineering --
mechanical, electronical, and computer being just a few -- just as there are
several branches of science. While the sciences is divided into chemistry,
earth & space, environmental, physics, and biology -- biology further divided
into zoology, microbiology, and botany -- engineering is lumped together.
This resulted in people who had civil eng. projects recieving chem. eng.
judges (et cetera).
Another important item about this fair is the fact that there are few
engineering awards, as compared to those for the sciences. I had to sit
through four hours of special awards ceremonies. There were about fifteen
awards -- including the team awards -- for engineering, most of which were
computer awards, so people with projects in non-computer engineering or team
projects didn't have a chance for special awards. Ditto for the fifteen Grand
Awards -- with Intel as a sponser, it follows that many of the engineering
awards would be given to computer related projects, and they were. Thirty
awards were given to eighteen people out of ninety five competitors. It is
somewhat saddening that organizations such as the Society for Women Engineers
did not use ISEF as an opportunity for encouraging engineers. In fact, there
were only five organizations that gave engineering awards -- Intel, IEEE, the
Air Force, the Army, and the Navy/Marines. Engineering was the second
largest category, second only to teams projects.
The final thing I would like to say is that all of the projects that I
had the opportunity to see (I was at my own the majority of the time) were
very wonderful. It is encouraging to see people my age and younger coming up
with all of these ideas, and following through and figuring out if their
hyptheses work or definitions of need are met. I reccommend to all of you
that if you are able to, attend the public days of ISEF in the future. Next
year, ISEF is in Ft. Worth, TX from May 10-16; it is open to the public on
the 14th and 15th if the schedule is like this year's. Information about ISEF
can be found at http://www.tss-inc.com/sciserv
-Kat-
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