Normally, when Teams are presenting their research and prototype to the judges they are in a small room. It is just them, the judges, their poster and prototype as they enter the Final stages of the Competition. Unfortunately this year the judges and Teams will be hundreds or thousands of miles apart, interacting through a webcam and screen. Not the intimate experience that we always strive for, but in times like these you find exciting new ways to utilize what you have!

For the 2020 Spellman HV Clean Tech Competition Finals, the Competition has decided that we will be live streaming each judging presentation for all to witness! More information will be coming soon, but for now mark off Thursday August 6, 2020 on your calendar as the date of our Virtual Finals that you can watch! 

The old saying “make lemonade out of lemons” could not be better applied than here. Two months ago we had a whole host of questions on how the event would run this year. Now we still have questions, but they are focused on exciting new pathways! Science is all about sharing and openness, and in a digital age we are able to take this to a whole new level. We hope you can join us for this one-of-a-kind event from any corner of the globe! 

 

After delays and adjustments in the face of a global pandemic, we have begun our judging! Last week hundreds of paper submissions were sent to dozens of engineers, professors and researchers across the globe to be scored. From here, we will narrow it down to our top Teams! First on June 5th we will be announcing our semi-finalists, so keep an eye on your email and our social media! Then that very next Monday, our Finalists will be announced on June 8th! These top 20 Teams will compete in our first ever Virtual Finals in early August. The Competition date will be announced very soon, that I promise you!

Presenting your research to a Team of judges is already a challenge. You may know your work better than anyone, but sharing that knowledge can often be difficult! Now, Teams will need to overcome the added challenge of doing so in a virtual format over video. Our 2020 Competitors have all had to overcome a disrupted research plan, so hats off to each and every one of them!

Every year, Teams from across the globe gather at the Spellman HV Clean Tech Finals. They bring unique ideas from a wide variety of inspiration and purpose, competing against their peers in pursuit of a common goal: a sustainable future for all. For the past 8 years, this has been one of the highlights of everyone involved with the Competition. Hearing Competitors discuss their projects with the public and watching them talk about their research with each other shows what this competition is truly about: sharing ideas to make the world better for all. 

It saddens us to have to cancel this culminating event for so many student scientists. But we are extremely excited to be able to continue in a virtual format! So many academic events have been canceled this year, and we are incredibly happy to be able to continue to provide this opportunity! More information on how this will all work will be coming soon, so keep an eye out on our website and social media for more exciting news!

Finally, 2021 is the 10 year anniversary of the Clean Tech Competition, so we will see you then!

Registration opened 6 months ago, but now it is almost closed! We are racing towards the deadline to register Teams and submit papers, with each week seeming  quicker than the last! Are you ready for the next round of the 2020 Spellman Clean Tech Competition?!? I know I am!

For me as the administrator, the past several months, while busy, have still moved with a certain lumbering speed. It is a walk that has a purpose, but it is far off so the effort is a steady stream of work. However the next couple months are the point where the tributaries converge, and that stream grows into a rushing river that moves full steam ahead no matter what is in its path. This is the point where all the pieces fall into place. The point were we determine this years top Teams! 

So make sure you are wrapping up those papers (hopefully not just starting them!), proof read, submit, and then you are done until we announce our semi-finalists on June 5! Well, done with work on THIS project that is. I am sure many of you are already working on some new research project, or fantasizing about your next world changing design. And that is exactly what we want, for your intrigue and inquisitiveness not to end with your research here. Thats how we make the world a better place, right? 

The past few months have been a tumultuous time for everyone. The current pandemic situation is unprecedented in modern human history in its scale of impact on our world, and this upheaval has also influenced many of the projects you all are working on. This, combined with the safety concerns related to gathering a group of individuals from across the globe, has led the Competition to decide to postpone our Finals event, and delay our timeline a bit. We hope this allows you to feel more confident in your work. To feel better about your results. To only submit the very best you have to offer, because we would expect nothing less!

The new dates are as follows:

• Registration Ends – Friday, May 8
• Papers Due – Wednesday, May 13
• Semi-finalist announcement – Friday, June 5
• Finalist Announcement – Monday, June 8
• Finals – Early August

We are working hard to get a new Finals date lined up, while also keeping a close eye on the safety recommendations that factor in to such a decision. These times are strange, but we will continue to do all we can to ensure the Competition goes on!

Are you someone who procrastinates? Started research recently? Totally forgot about this Competition to begin with? Well the good news is you still have time to register! The registration period ends on April 10, and papers are now due on April 12, so you still have time to get your work done and papers submitted!

In case you missed our original post, we had extended registration to accommodate teams met at the National Science Teaching Association conference in Boston! However due to global conditions I am sure you have all heard of more than you care, the conference was cancelled. While saddened by this, we fully support this decision by the NSTA to help keep everyone as safe as possible. 

However this works out for anyone who has not yet entered! So practice your best social distancing skills, wrap up that research, finalize that paper, and finish your registration in the Clean Tech Competition! 

My how time flies when you are busy! It seems like just yesterday it was the first day of a new year, and here we are just days away from the start of the third month! March Madness may be a term used in college basketball (at least here in the States) but here at the Competition, it certainly also applies to us. 

March puts us in the final stretch for registration and Competition awareness, so we are hustling and bustling to get the word out to as many people as we can! You may have received an email or seen our posts on Facebook (hopefully the promoted ones too!) and I hope you have registered your team and sent it on to a friend (or three!)

With over a month to go for registrations, the Competition has just crossed into the 21 country tally! Recent additions include India, the UAE, Khazakstan, Kenya, Nigeria and Brazil! With teams from Brazil hopping on, we now have entrants from every continent on earth, and we are showing no signs of stopping. We have said this more times than we can count, but we are a global competition for a global problem. The issue of a sustainable future affects all of us, no matter what country, continent, community or culture that we are a part of. This is why we have chosen Reducing Individual Impacts as our theme for the year, because we want the impact to be felt on a personal level for everyone!

 

If you are reading this, then odds are you care a great deal about the environment and understand the gravity of the situation we are currently in. It is a fight for the life of everything we know. To you and I, that is a very big deal. We understand why this is an issue, and how it became an issue, and what we have to do to try to prevent it. But a lot of people do not, far more than is really imaginable and it hard to understand why. 

The conclusion I have come to, and have read many an article or opinion piece that has similar ideas, is that it is not so much that these people do not care, but that they do not know how to care. And I do not mean that in a “they have no emotions way” but in a they do not fully understand how it works way, and do not care to learn more. Often these are intelligent people. They are not unable to grasp the concept, they just have learned what they have learned, and decided that they know enough about it, and chose to claim they have read all that matters on the subject and that the rest is just not true or an exaggeration. 

This is why, when confronted someone who does not share the same ideals as yourself on this (or any) subject, it is important not to get angry and lash out, because that only puts people on the defensive and less likely to listen. Asking them to explain how they came to their conclusion and then gently pointing out inconsistencies and misconceptions works much better. Attacking the whole basis of someones ideas, especially someone who is able to understand the full picture as long as they have the full information, is a surefire way to make them not wish to listen to you at all. And then you have truly lost. 

Well, that got more philosophical than I expected, but I hope you see the point! It is hard not to get upset about something you feel so very passionate about. But if you are to help someone see the error in their way, you have to talk with them, not just at them. 

Those of you keeping up with the Clean Tech Competition social media recently know that I recently spent some time in England attending the Association for Science Education’s Annual Conference! The Association for Science Education (ASE) is the professional network for the United Kingdoms science educators, and last week over 2,500 of their members (and many from outside the UK) met at the University of Reading for several days of networking and professional development. I was lucky enough to attend and I am glad that I did! 

Each day was packed with lectures and demonstrations, so many so that it was extremely hard to chose which ones to attend! I saw more talks on research programs in high schools than I can even calculate, and it was a great place to introduce the competition to a wider audience than previously possible. Everyone I spoke with was enthusiastic about the Competition, and promised to pass on the information to either their students or colleagues. 

The atmosphere was incredibly inviting and inspiring to anyone with a remote interest in science. A lot of the sessions focused on how to integrate an understanding of sustainability and environmental appreciation, which was a wonderful thing to see since that is obviously the focus of the Clean Tech Competition!

If any of you ever get the chance to attend, then I highly encourage it! We will certainly be back next year, maybe to give a presentation or two on how teachers can integrate CTC into their curriculum, and bring environmental enthusiasm to their classroom and beyond.