Overview

Michael Andrews IEEE Region 6 Delegate-Elect and Jean Eason, past Region 5 Director have recently introduced an exciting new proposal to help increase understanding of the Smart Grid while training and educating the engineers of tomorrow.  The IEEE volunteer-led initiative, partially sponsored by IEEE’s Power & Energy Society (PES), is called the “SMART Competition”.  SMART stands for Sustainable Materials And Renewable Technology, which forms the basis for the student project.

Competition’s Design

The SMART Competition is directed at high school students and will focus on Smart Grid concepts including: sustainable building design, smart grid monitoring and improvement of campus loading conditions, neighborhood impact, and varying loading conditions such as electrical vehicle (EV) charging, special or extraordinary events, day-of-week fluctuations, etc.

Beginning with a high school campus, the students will redesign the high school’s existing gymnasium.  Project deliverables include a scale model of the gymnasium/campus, a computer generated animation of a fly-around of their campus and auditorium, a research report based on the challenge of the Smart Grid and a team presentation.  Students will use Bentley AECO energy analysis software, a new high end energy simulation tool, to develop baseline data and monitor the energy usage on their campus design.

Timeline
 
The SMART Competition will take begin in the fall.  The regional and national competitions will take place in early 2012.  The goal of the competition is to provide a real-world application of technology enabling high-school students to address a critical environmental and energy challenge.  In addition to the academic elements of the competition, the program will facilitate the development of workforce and life skills including computer analysis and software design, verbal and written communication, research, teamwork and problem solving.
 
Beta testing of the program began in March of this year at select schools in Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Texas, and is scheduled to conclude in July.  Registrations for the SMART Competition will begin in November 2011.

Following the initial beta competition, additional training materials will be added such as supporting web forums and seminars to further educate the participants.  It is anticipated that as the competition rolls out, the program will connect with other STEM and “green building” initiatives to allow for the greater exposure of both the program and its participants.

Competition’s Benefits and Goals

The purpose of the competition is to expose high-school students to the concept of the smart grid, energy monitoring and energy conservation and lead them the through the necessary steps to create new solutions to better utilize resources.  As part of the learning process, the student will also become knowledgeable of concepts regarding power generation, load balancing and security requirements for the grid and how to design a project that applies and potentially improves those concepts.  The project will also focus on the sustainability of building design and energy efficient building concepts.
 
During the competition, students will develop workforce experience through the use of commercially used computer-aided design (CAD) software and the principles of its use in the construction industry.  Students will leave the competition familiar with energy simulation, building design software and building information modeling, as well as 3d imaging and design. 
 
How to Participate

In order to succeed, SMART will need your help.  Volunteers already involved in the energy fields and those outside the field are needed to take the program to the next level.  For more information on the SMART Competition, how to help or how to register your school to participate please contact Mike Andrews at m.andrews@ieee.org.
 
All members of the founding board and many volunteers have extensive leadership experience with another successful program; “National Engineers Week Future City Competition™”.  Originally organized by IEEE, this 20-year old competition has successfully challenged middle school students to design their vision of a city of the future using sound STEM principles as guidelines for their project.
 
About the SMART Organization
 
SMART volunteers built upon their experience with other pre-college education programs to craft the new SMART Competition.  Realizing many Future City graduates were eagerly anticipating a “what’s next” higher level competition and the need for an innovative approach to our future energy needs, the founders focused on the nation’s power grid and the high school students.  By basing the competition on an educational campus setting and allowing the students to use their familiarity with that setting, the program creates a practical ‘real life’ experience with futuristic applications.