About this event

The CIE/USA-DFW Student Engineering and Creativity Convention (SECC) program is designed for all students in grades 1 through 12 to acquire interest in STEM through creative hands-on projects, real world challenges, and interaction with industry professionals. This STEM event supports the National Discover-E Engineers Week. The SECC consists of a series of programs: two free hands-on workshops and a competition. For the past four years, SECC has attracted huge interests from DFW 1st to 12th grade students. We are excited to announce the new theme and updated technologies this year. Hundreds of students have improved their coding and presentation skills from this event, and you can too!

Eligibility

Students currently enrolled in grades

6 to 12 in spring 2024 are eligible to participate.

Workshops

Two FREE workshops are open to the public to give additional information of the competition as well as training for the tools.

Workshop 1: Introducing AWS DeepRacer and Competition Rules

When: 3/16/2024 2:00PM – 4:00PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Location: Zoom 2024 SECC 1st Workshop

Video: 2024 SECC 1st AWS DeepRacer Workshop

Workshop 2: In depth training in Reinforcement learning and fine-tune the DeepRacer 

When: 3/30/2024 2:30PM – 4:30PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Location: Zoom 2024 SECC AWS DeepRacer Workshop #2

Video: 2024 CIE SECC AWS DeepRacer workshop#2 Passcode: 7nLNZ*LQ

Q&A Session

When: 4/13/2024 2:30PM – 4:00PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Location: Zoom 2024 CIE SECC AWS DeepRacer Q&A Session

AWS DeepRacer Virtual Competition

When: 4/20/2024 2:30PM – 4:00PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Location: Zoom

2024 CIE Youth STEM Convention

When: 6/1/2024  11:00AM – 5:30PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Location: UT Dallas

Awards

• Cash awards will be given to the first three places and special award winners per division. 
• Trophy: The winners of each division will also receive a trophy at the event award ceremony, presented by the corporate sponsors.
• Recognition: Award recipients will be recognized on both websites and in the eNewsletters of the CIE/USA-DFW, local news media and social media, and a showcase at CIE/USA-DFW Annual Convention in August 2024.

Top 40% contestants will receive Honorable Mention awards and medals.
All contestants will receive E-certificates for participation.
The number of winners is subject to change based on number of contestants.

Registration is required.  The early registration fee of $15 per student expires on March 23th. Then starting March 24th, the registration fee will be $20 per student. CIE Members will receive a discount. The registration fee is non-refundable.

Register Now

Both individual and team registrations are accepted. Students are encouraged to form a team to learn teamwork skills and share responsibilities and costs.
To become a CIE member, visit http://www.cie-dfw.org/plan

Important dates and events:

SPONSORS