Tohickon Middle School in the Central Bucks School District is one of 50 schools to advance as a state winner in the 14th annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) competition, designed to empower students in sixth through 12 grades to leverage the power of STEM to create innovative solutions addressing critical issues in their local communities.
Each state winner has earned a Samsung technology prize package worth $12,000. The GenZ innovators now move forward in their quest to be named one of three national winners that each unlock $100,000 for their school. Overall, Samsung will award more than $2 million in prizes to this year’s participating schools.
State winners were selected from among 300 state finalist public middle and high schools who submitted detailed lesson plans outlining how their students propose using STEM to address an important community issue.
For the competition, Tohickon Middle School is developing an industrial UVC lamp that can be hung over tables in labs to ensure safety and create a cleaner space.
Each state winner will receive a video production kit from Samsung to help document their project and produce a three-minute video demonstrating how they are using STEM to address the community issue raised in their lesson plan. Samsung employee will once again serve as mentors, assigned to the state winners on a one-to-one basis to help guide the student teams as they develop their projects and build a prototype. State winners will need to submit their videos for review ahead of the video deadline on March 7.
One school will be honored as a climate visionary with a Sustainability Innovation Award for driving sustainable change through STEM innovation, and an additional $50,000 prize package that includes Samsung ENERGY STAR technology. One school will be selected for the new Rising Entrepreneurship Award, receiving a $25,000 prize package to foster the development of a scalable, sustainable venture that will extend beyond the competition.
Ten national finalist schools will be chosen to participate in a live, in-person pitch event in April where they will present their project to a panel of judges. From the national finalists, judges will name three national winners, each of whom earns a prize package worth $100,000.
The remaining seven national finalist schools will be awarded $50,000 in Samsung technology and classroom supplies. A Community Choice Winner will be determined through online voting by the general public, winning an additional $10,000 in prizes. An Employee Choice Winner will be selected by Samsung employees to receive $10,000 in prizes in addition to their national finalist winnings.
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