Oklahoma School Wins IEEE-USA National Award
St. Philip Neri School of Midwest City, Okla., won the fourth IEEE-USA Best Communications System Award at the national finals of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition on Wednesday. The honor, one of 22 special awards presented at the Hyatt Regency Hotel-Capitol Hill, was for the most "efficient and accurate communications system."
Students Alyssa Grossen,13; David Hoang,14; and Lauren Mathias,12, comprised the team with St. Philip Neri teacher Sue Hawkins and electrical engineer Wayne Recla. The team advanced to Washington by winning the Oklahoma regional competition last month. Its city, Chrysalis, is set in the year 2237.
The featured components of St. Philip Neri's communications system are antennas and titanium microchips. An embedded microscopic finger phone transmits voice into an electrical signal through a diaphragm amplifier and antenna. The signal goes to a tower and then to a receiver. Each person's head is embedded with an antenna and microchip that converts the signal into vibrations that are transmitted via bone conduction to the cochlea of the inner ear.
The Future City Competition, which IEEE-USA introduced to Engineers Week in 1993, is designed to encourage the future generation of engineers. Seventh and eighth grade students create their own vision of a city of tomorrow, working first on computer and then constructing three-dimensional scale models. About 30,000 students competed this past year. Pittsburgh regional champion Riverview Junior/Senior High School won the overall competition Wednesday. Visit http://www.futurecity.org or http://www.eweek.org for more information.
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