After School Matters to Civiltech

Civiltech’s Mike Folkening and Brandon Bogenschutz worked with Chicago’s Curie High School students participating in a US First Robotics competition earlier this year. This was the second year that Curie students and faculty competed in this event. The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an enriching six-week program that integrates teams, technical professionals, spon¬sors, and colleges with high school students to develop their creative problem-solving to a pre¬scribed engineering challenge in a competitive game environment. The practical application of science and technology combined with the fun, intense energy and excitement of a champion¬ship-sporting event challenges students as they consider their own talents and a future career path. An international competition, the FRC esti¬mates 2009 participation to be approximately 44,000 students representing approximately 1,725 international teams.

During a six-week timeframe, Brandon and Mike worked with the Curie students twice a week for a couple of hours. The students took a standard “kit of parts” and a common set of rules to design and build a robot, using creative problem-solving, overcoming obstacles, team spirit, and excellence in design. Students cre¬ated a target-carrying robot for a game called “Lunacy”. This was the first time that Civiltech participated in this program, which was reward¬ing for our engineers and their students.

In addition to this competition, our Chicago office has introduced a new high school internship program through After School Matters. Michael, a sophomore from Aspira Mirta Ramirez Charter High School, expressed his desire to learn about engineering, having responded to Civiltech’s advertisement on the school’s summer internship board. Michael is taking advantage of a valuable mentoring opportunity to learn about roadway and traffic engineering. His passion for computers is being enriched through drafting, learning how to use CAD. Going beyond “shadowing” activities, he’s in the early stages of participating in field checks and attending meetings, working with team members to train for production as if he were an adult intern. Mentorship and hands on experience with talented team members is an invaluable opportunity for him, as Michael will get a taste of weekly engineering projects, develop problem-solving skills, and learn how Civiltech’s expertise positively impacts his community. Students are the future of our profession and this opportunity will prepare Michael to be a productive asset in his future career.