PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Open to ALL high schools in Massachusetts at NO COST to schools.
No previous experience with MATLAB is expected or required of teachers or students
High school students learn to code in MATLAB and are then tasked to create their own fitness tracker. Students begin with an online tutorial on MATLAB which should start and be completed during Massachusetts STEM Week (October 22-26) as part of an after-school club or school time activity. Schools then form teams of up to 20 students (schools can form multiple teams) where at least 5 students have completed the tutorial. At the end of Massachusetts STEM Week, teams with at least 5 students who have completed the tutorial will be given a complimentary license of MATLAB Online and MATLAB Mobile and the challenge of collecting data, doing research and writing code to create their own fitness tracker.
Final submissions of team fitness trackers are due to i2 Learning on February 15, where a panel of judges from MathWorks, MIT and a number of other engineering organizations will award prizes to teams for creativity, technical ability and overall product solution. The judging rubric will be provided with the challenge.
Key Topics: Coding • Data Analysis • Modeling
Run by i2 Learning with curriculum developed by
SAMPLE ACTIVITIES
KEY DATES
September 1 - October 22, 2018 | Team Registration
October 22-26, 2018 | Massachusetts STEM Week and Phase One of the MATLAB STEM Challenge
Team members complete a ~45 minute MATLAB tutorial online.
October 29, 2018 - February 15, 2019 | Phase Two of the MATLAB STEM Challenge
The team will be designing a fitness tracker and can work on it in class or after during the program period.
March 1, 2019 | Awards are announced
Winning teams have the opportunity to visit the MathWorks, meet with engineers and experience the work culture at a company dedicated to accelerating the pace of engineering and science.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
There is no cost to schools for participating in the MATLAB STEM Challenge as part of Massachusetts STEM Week, all tools and software necessary to complete the work is provided for free to participating Massachusetts high schools.
No experience with MATLAB is required for students or their teachers to participate. Team members will need access to a laptop or computer to access a browser and a mobile phone (iOS or Android).
After Massachusetts STEM Week, teams will be given a simple solution to solve the fitness tracker challenge and can then build upon that solution or come up with a different approach.
It is expected that most of the project will be completed outside of regular school time though we encourage schools to allow students to work on the online tutorial during school as part of Massachusetts STEM Week in October.
Any high school student in grade 9-12 is welcome to participate though schools can set their own criteria for the formation of their team(s).