The Chinese Youth Engineering Design Contest was held successfully from August 15 to 19 at the University of Michigan- Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (UM-SJTU JI). The annual summer event is a community service project organized by the JI student club TEC (Top-Engineer Camp).
The contest format followed the previous two years. The leader of each team was selected by testing results, responsible for recruiting his/her team members and inviting instructors from JI’s freshman and sophomore TEC members. Under the supervision of the instructors, each team worked 4 days and 5 nights to complete producing a smart car with optical sense and remote control. Besides public demonstration of the cars, the contest also included a cross-country race, which made the competition more interesting and engaging.
JI Party Secretary Xinwan Li giving the awards and encouraging the students
The TEC organizers also invited special guests to talk about frontier technology and engineer career planning, including a Microsoft Engineer, a data scientist, and Dongfang Lan, a JI alumnus and co-founder of SuperLab and App-Arks.
JI’s TEC Club was initiated by Da Xie in 2013, consisting of more than 20 undergraduates. The club aims to expose high school students to college engineering education, train their hands-on capabilities, teamwork spirit and public speaking skills. The contest models JI’s brand course “Introduction to Engineering,” based on design projects and presentations, with leadership, social skills and innovation added on. Over the past 3 years, the contest has improved and become increasingly popular, attracting high school students from all over the China.
The contest participants gain precious experience of completing projects independently while making new friends with similar interests. For TEC members, they have learned by teaching and honed their organization skills. The students are looking forward to better performance next summer.
