The Fort Meade Alliance (FMA) welcomed 100 high school students from Howard and Carroll County at its semi-annual Tech Mania on Friday, Dec. 1.
Students from Century High School, Hammond High School, Long Reach High School and Oakland Mills High School participated in the STEM-related field trip, which took place at the Howard Community College campus.
The FMA coordinated interactive STEM-related demonstrations from various member companies including Amazon Web Services, BigBear.ai, Learning Undefeated and Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin Corporation and the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.
“Tech Mania is an opportunity to make a potential impact on a student,” commented Engineer Angelo Said of Lockheed Martin. “We know from being in their position at one point ourselves, that if that one person didn’t reach out to us we could all be in a different place right now.”
There was a variety of topics explored during the half-day event.
Amazon Web Services showed the students the vast capabilities of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning leveraging their services Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Rekognition and how they can use it in their everyday life.
BigBear.ai taught students about AI tools and had them competed in groups to generate images using AI prompts. They also discussed the ethics of AI.
Learning Undefeated and Northrop Grumman focused on cyber-attacks and hacking. The students were provided tablets to investigate an attempted hacking.
Lockheed Martin had students use coding with Ozobots to complete difficult mazes during their demonstration.
Whiting-Turner showed students technology in construction from special software to create 3D models to virtual reality. They had to figure out a puzzle using the 3D software.
“Tech Mania has undeniably become a beloved tradition at our school, sparking curiosity and igniting a passion for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics,” said Rachel Fullen of Century High School. “It’s more than an event; it’s an experience that leaves a lasting impact on our students.”
