CPS students compete in STEM challenge at Field Museum

CPS, NASCAR team up for STEAM Fest at the Field Museum

From coding bots to building racetracks, CPS students took over the Field Museum for a NASCAR-fueled STEM showdown.

CHICAGO - Chicago’s famed Field Museum is always bustling with schoolchildren.

But on Thursday, the cavernous hallways were packed with Chicago Public School students who may one day wind up working at the Field as scientists.

The backstory:

"This is our third annual Steamfest powered by NASCAR," said Kelli Easterly, who heads CPS’ STEM efforts.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

"Students from 51 elementary and high schools across our city are competing today after winning their in-school challenge. The challenge started with 22,000 students and we're hosting the 600 winners from each of those schools," Easterly added.

And because the event is hosted by NASCAR, the technology involves racing. Students had to figure out how to build faster cars and design tracks for tiny Ozobots, which are little robots which respond to code to follow a path.

"It's really incredible what these young kids and their minds can do," said NASCAR champion racer Ryan Blaney, who said there's an amazing amount of hi-tech science behind those fast and noisy cars. "We're always looking for engineers, whether that's software engineers, mechanical engineers, aerodynamics. It can all be applied. And gosh, we can't hire kids fast enough out of college."

Dig deeper:

For the CPS students participating at Thursday’s event, it's a challenge to put their science skills to use as a team and innovate on the fly.

"This is teaching us how to use robotics, how to use strategic thinking," said Gabriella Gonzalez, a junior at Infinity High School. "We have to memorize our path and once we get in there we need to move the tiles as fast as we can to ensure that we cut down all the time that we can."

Jolexi Ramirez, a freshman at Lakeview High School, said he enjoys the challenge.

"I want to be a programmer, so this will help me. I want to do robotics," Ramirez said.

What's next:

The winning teams were awarded tickets to this summer’s NASCAR race in downtown Chicago, where they can see the science and physics of racing up close and on a much larger scale.