Student contests, competitions, and unique activities are a great way to engage the future transportation workforce and to educate students on the diverse career opportunities in the field of transportation operations. The National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) has two student focused activities, and additional activities from public and private organizations are featured below.
ePortfolio Competition for TRB: This NOCoE contest asked students to develop ePortfolios to demonstrate their creativity and communications skills in how they market their experience and describe their future career goals. Winners are sent to the TRB Annual Meeting where they meet with industry leaders, participate in committee meetings, and interact with other future TSMO professionals.
Transportation Technology Tournament: Held by NOCoE and ITS Joint Program Office's Professional Capacity Building program, this competition featured 9 teams competing around providing real-world solutions to transportation challenges faced by agencies. Student teams worked with academic and industry liaisons to solve these transportation challenges, providing both proposal like documentation and presentation materials. Industry leaders served as judges and the finalists are headed to ITE Annual Meeting to compete in person.
Innovations Challenge: The PennDOT Innovations Challenge is a statewide competition that challenges teams of students in ninth through 11th grade to use their problem solving, creative and strategic-thinking abilities to solve real-world transportation challenges. Regional winners will be selected from each of PennDOT's 11 Engineering Districts.
If you know about more contests, competitions, and student engagement efforts that will help the TSMO workforce, please email Adam Hopps.