4 STEM Competitions for High Schoolers

eCyberMission

You can participate(参加) in this competition without leaving the house. eCyberMission is   a web-based contest in which participants—working in teams of two to four students—use science, math, and technology to solve problems facing their communities. First-place winners receive $1,000.

Grades: 9th

Competition Type: Regional, state, and national

Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision

Interested in what the future has to hold? Consider ExploraVision’s STEM competition. Working in teams of two to four, students will research a particular technology and discuss the ways in which it may impact lives moving forward. Participants are required to write a paper and draw web pages communicating their vision.

Grades: 7th- 9th and 10th- 12th

Competition Type: Regional and national

Spellman Clean Tech Competition

The Spellman Clean Tech Competition tests students’ ability to research and design—it requires participants to recognise a real-world issue, research the problem, and design a solution that uses clean technology. Participants gain a better understanding of STEM fields and may help make the earth a healthier place. In addition to the honor of winning a well-known STEM competition, there are some awards for top finishers—including a $7,000 first prize.

Grades: 9th- 12th

Competition Type: International

Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS)

The most promising young scientists in the nation compete in the Regeneron STS—one of the country’s oldest and most famous STEM competitions. The competition is open to high school seniors and challenges them to carry out an independent research project and submit(提交) their findings along with a paper and up to four recommendations(推荐信). Winners can take home awards of up to $250,000!

Grades: 12th

Competition Type: National

A team of three students won $700,000 this week for using artificial intelligence (AI) to read passages from an ancient papyrus scroll (纸草卷轴). The document is one of the more than 800 scrolls known as the Herculaneum papyri that were carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Researchers discovered the passages in the 18th century, but attempts to read them proved in vain: Unfolding them by hand only caused them to fall apart.

That’s where the Vesuvius Challenge comes in. Brent Seales, a computer scientist, and two businessmen, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, launched the Vesuvius Challenge in March 2023, offering more than $1 million in prize money for reaching a series of milestones using “computer vision, machine learning and hard work”. For the biggest prize, the organizers released high-resolution CT scans of the scrolls and explained the contest’s rules: Participants would need to decipher (破译) at least 85 percent of four passages. A series of smaller prizes were also awarded throughout the year.

The winning team consists of Nader (an Egyptian PhD student in Germany), Julian Schilliger (a robotics student in Switzerland) and Luke Farritor (a computer science student in Nebraska). Their submission was “met with widespread amazement” by the review team of papyrologists. Farritor also won the challenge’s $40,000 “First Letters” prize in October, when he deciphered the scroll’s first word “porphyras”, which means “purple” in ancient Greek. Nader and Farritor began working together the following month and were joined by Schilliger shortly before the December 31 deadline.

The team ultimately trained machine-learning algorithms (算法) to decipher more than 2,000 characters—more than what was needed to win the Grand Prize. These passages appear to be a philosophical discussion of life’s pleasures, including music and food, though the papyrology team is still studying the results. “It seems familiar to us, and we can’t escape the feeling that the first text we’ve uncovered is a 2,000-year-old blog post about how to enjoy life,” write the organizers.

Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: international contests encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic Games have done little to support the view that sports encourage international brotherhood. Not only was there the incident of tragedy involving murders of athletes, but the Games were also ruined by lesser incidents caused principally by minor national contests.

One country received its second-place medals with visible anger after the hockey final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, as the losers disagreed with the final decisions. They believed that one of their goals should have been allowed and that their opponents' victory was unfair. Their manager was in great anger when he said: “This isn't hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished.” The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension(停赛) of the team for at least three years.

The American basketball team announced that they would not yield first place to Russia, after a disputable(有争议的) end to their contest. The game had ended in disorder. It was thought at first that the United States had won by a single point, but it was announced that there were three seconds still to play. A Russian player then threw the ball from one end of the court to the other, and another player popped it into the basket. It was the first time the US had ever lost an Olympic basketball match. An appeal jury (评审委员会) debated the matter for four and a half hours before announcing that the result would stand. The American players then voted not to receive the silver medals.

Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism (爱国主义).