STEM Club

STEM CLUB

The purpose of STEM Club is to provide a place for Siegel Middle students to develop their STEM skills and deepen their knowledge of STEM career fields. The club has two main parts - STEM Competition and Robotics. Each team requires a team fee in order to participate.

STEM Competition Team

The STEM Competition Team will compete in several STEM-based competitions: Science Olympiad, STEM Expo and SkillsUSA. There is a fee involved in participation on the STEM Competition team.

Science Olympiad - Science Olympiad functions much like a football or soccer team, requiring preparation, commitment, coaching and practice throughout the year. Each school-based team is allowed to bring 15 students who cross-train for a variety of events in their skill set, Science Olympiad competitions are like academic track meets, consisting of a series of 23 team events in each division (Division B is middle school; Division C is high school). Each year, a portion of the events are rotated to reflect the ever-changing nature of genetics, earth science, chemistry, anatomy, physics, geology, mechanical engineering and technology. By combining events from all disciplines, Science Olympiad encourages a wide cross-section of students to get involved. Emphasis is placed on active, hands-on group participation.

SkillsUSA - Representing nearly 400,000 career and technical education students and teachers, SkillsUSA chapters thrive in middle schools, high schools and college/postsecondary institutions nationwide. Our mission is accomplished through the SkillsUSA Framework of Personal Skills, Workplace Skills and Technical Skills Grounded in Academics, which is integrated into classroom curriculum.

STEM Expo - STEM Comp will allow students to use the Engineering Design Process to develop a product that solves a real-world problem. That product will then be presented at either the RCS STEM Expo, or MidTN STEM Expo.

Robotics Team

Robotics will encourage students to flex their STEM skills in designing robots to solve problems in a team setting. Students will compete in the Vex IQ and Kilobots competitions, as well as some members competing in the Robotics competition in SkillsUSA. Robotics members are also required to participate in at least one of the other STEM competition options: Science Olympiad, SkillsUSA, or STEM Expo. There is a fee in order to participate on the Robotics team.

Vex IQ - VEX IQ Robotics Competition Rapid Relay is played on a 6’ x 8’ rectangular field configured as seen above. Two robots compete in the Teamwork Challenge as an alliance in 60 second long teamwork matches, working collaboratively to score points.

Teams also compete in the Robot Skills Challenge where one robot takes the field to score as many points as possible. These matches consist of Driving Skills Matches, which will be entirely driver controlled, and Autonomous Coding Skills Matches, which will be autonomous with limited human interaction.

Kilobots - Kilobots is a combat robot event designed for Middle and High School teams in which two, 1kg, 3D-printed, radio-controlled robots compete in a 3 minute bout with the goal of incapacitating their opponent. All robots are designed, printed, built, and operated by student teams.