High school students and university personnel are invited to attend Wilkes University’s 2014 Engineering Olympics on March 28, 2014.

The Engineering Olympics will take place in Arnaud C. Marts Center at Wilkes University.

The event is meant to excite and inform regional high school students about the engineering profession and give them the opportunity to apply engineering principles to the real world.

The Engineering Olympics is student ran; organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Club. Bernard Socha is the treasurer of IEEE and the Engineering Olympics coordinator. Lucas Domelevicz is the president of IEEE and co-coordinator of the event.

Both have competed in the event when they were in high school and both ended up winning the competition.

There are two electrical and two mechanical events this year with 13 different high schools participating in the events. Each school sends 10 juniors, making five pairs of two.

“We want to minimize mathematical calculations; our goal is to have them do more creative problem solving rather than just more mathematical problem solving. It makes it more interesting that way,” Domelevicz said.

In past years of the Engineering Olympics the events included bridge-building with Popsicle sticks and biggest tower building with using the least amount of materials. With each growing year the events have become more complex.

“Students get to actually experience building something and then test what they created to see if it works,” Socha said.

The winner of the event gets a $40,000 scholarship to Wilkes University. All competitors who participated in the event also get a tour of the Wilkes campus, showing them equipment used for engineering and current research projects. Almost half of the competitors end up registering for Wilkes’ engineering program.

The event tests the students’ critical thinking, building, and tests their abilities in the field of engineering and science. It allows the students to bring out their competitive side.