Please, register and reserve your spot soon for this event: 

Northeast Regional STEM Connections Day Registration

Micheal Cocoran from DESE will be speaking on AI guidance for local education, including for LEA and AI Literacy guidance that DESE will be providing.

This is a free event with a continental breakfast, lunch, and STEM giveaways!  

Make connections for grant opportunities, free equipment loans for schools, STEM mobile visits to your schools and community, valuable information from a variety of STEM organizations including Project Lead the Way, FIRST robotics, Missouri’s After School Network, Missouri 4-H, REC Foundation, Missouri STEM Initiatives, Kummer for STEM education and more.

This event will be hosted at the Missouri Military Academy in Mexico, Mo.

The Kummer Center for STEM Education at Missouri S&T is here to support you, your staff, and students in STEM!

Register Here for PLTW Launch Teacher Conference

Show-me STEM Alliance PLTW Showcase - April 20, 2027 Registration will open in January:

Innovative Solutions Competition - April 20 Registration will open in January.

PLTW Innovative Solutions Challenge

• Eligibility
  • Must be a current high school student
  • Must have completed or are currently enrolled in a PLTW Course
  • Teachers, mentors, parents or other students may assist the team with accomplishing their goals
  • Goal of the mentor is to push the team towards a vision of the team's own design; however, the mentor may provide feedback to a prompt or a problem for the students to solve using innovative solutions
  • The mentor may provide guidance on how to approach any challenges that are encountered.
  • Students must clearly identify the role of any and all outside assistance that is provided along with their abstract.
  • 1-3 Members
    • Team members are not allowed to be on more than one team
  • Schools are only allowed to have 1 team per discipline in the final competition
    • Each team from each school may submit an abstract, but if the judges pick more than one team from the same school to be in the top five, only the top scoring team will be chosen for the final competition.
    • It is preferred that the school has a competition and choses the winning team to compete.
  • 1 team maximum per pathway per school for the final competition: Biomedical, Engineering, and Computer Science
• Competition Description
  • Must identify a pressing problem related to the targeted discipline
  • Must be clearly identified
  • Must be specific
  • Must present a novel solution that either “solves” or “mitigates” the problem identified
  • Students must come up with an innovative solution on their own without direct guidance
  • Solution must be feasible 
    • How would the project be implemented?
    • Estimated cost analysis.
    • Expected stakeholders in the project
    • Who is the target of this solution or product?
    • Who else would be interested in seeing the solution implemented?
  • And include information concerning
  • The abstract must include a description of the identified problem and the presented solution
  • The abstract must also be 250 words or less
  • The abstract may have any drawings/prototypes with descriptions included with it to clarify the solution
  • Students must clearly identify the role of any and all outside assistance that is provided along with their abstract.
  • All first level judging will be based on the abstract and provided drawings/prototypes
  • Any sources used must be cited, direct plagiarism will not be tolerated
  • APA format must be used for all citations
  • There must not be any use of Al tools, such as ChatGPT or any other generative artificial intelligence, to write their abstract.
  • Problem
  • Solution
  • Abstract and materials
  • Formatting
• The Competition
  • All abstracts and drawings/prototypes must be submitted by March 20.
  • All Finalists will be chosen by April 4 
  • Showcases and Presentations will be April 21 at Missouri S&T
  • Finalist teams will be selected from all submissions for each respective disciplinary category
  • These finalists will present their problem and novel solution to a select group of distinguished judges following their showcase.
  • Presentation must include a visual of the solution.
  • This may be accomplished by providing a prototype, multimedia presentation, models or presentation boards.
  • All participants must be part of the presentation to win.
  • Problem and solution details will be presented.
  • Presentation time:
  • 5 minute setup time
  • 10 minute presentation time including multimedia
  • 5 minute question and answer time with the judges.
  • All finalists must attend the showcase in order to compete for the prizes. 
  • You do not need to be a finalist to attend the showcase with your project.
    • Finalists will be decided prior to the showcase.  
    • Presentations will follow the showcase on April 9.
  • Students are encouraged to showcase their work, even if they are not a finalist…Showcases will inspire younger students, university and special guests.
  • Showcase will be for all PLTW students (Launch, Gateway, Biomedical, Computer Science, and Engineering) 
  • Inability to attend the showcase and presentation is a considered a forfeiture 
  • Prizes will be awarded based on abstracts, solution, showcase and presentations
  • $1200 will be awarded for each winning team for each discipline
    • Groups of 2 or 3 the prize will be split evenly.
  • There will be alternative awards presented to groups who match specific other criteria
  • Deadlines
  • Selection
  • Presentation
  • Showcase
  • The Prize