Mini-Urban Challenge

Casey C. Miller, Caroline A. New

Abstract:	Today, high school students in the U.S. express little desire to pursue degrees and careers in science and engineering fields. According to a recent study, fewer than 6% of high school seniors plan to pursue engineering degrees [1]. “There are nowhere near enough engineers in the pipeline,” warns the Aerospace Industries Association [1]. Without a new influx of researchers, the average age of our scientists and engineers will continue to climb steadily and “over the next 18 months, 27 percent of the engineering work force will be eligible for retirement.” It is believed that the root of this decay is incoming college students’ lack of understanding for what the field of engineering has to offer – festering from the fact they were never introduced to it during their four years in high school. The Institute of Navigation’s (ION) Mini Urban Challenge is a unique competition designed to not only introduce high school students to various engineering disciplines, but also show them how much fun problem solving can be. The Mini Urban Challenge hopes to seal the current crevice in education by providing high school students with a distinctive engineering experience that both presents them with a real engineering problem, but also teams them with senior and junior engineers/mentors. This paper will explain ION’s Mini Urban Challenge.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2008) September 16 - 19, 2008 Savannah International Convention Center Savannah, GA
Pages:	819 - 825
Cite this article:	Miller, Casey C., New, Caroline A., "Mini-Urban Challenge," Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2008), Savannah, GA, September 2008, pp. 819-825.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In