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Emerson Center for Engineering and Manufacturing

The Emerson Center for Engineering and Manufacturing prepares learners to become the workers and managers of the future by preparing them to handle work assignments in high skill, high demand, and high wage work environments.  The center hosts several annual events and activities which include:

• Project Lead the Way Competition -- encourages area high schools students to explore engineering and technical career fields by using technology and mathematics to solve problems and work in teams.
   
• TEAMS Competition -- one-day, two-part national competition challenging high school students in grades 9-12 to work together to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world engineering scenarios.
   
• SME Girl Scouts Workshop -- weeklong STEPS Academy Summer Camp for local girl scouts in the 8^th and 9^th grades.  Participants learn how to build rockets and gliders.  The camp is initiated by the Girl Scout Council of St. Louis, uses a curriculum from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and is taught by local Project Lead the Way teachers and FV instructors.
   
• FIRST LEGO League & Vex Competition -- two-day competition that showcases more than 450 elementary, middle and high school students from St. Louis and seven surrounding states.  The event is sponsored by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). In the LEGO League competition, teams of 9- to 14-year-olds design, build and program robots using LEGO MINDSTORM technology.  The Vex Challenge is a mid-level robotics competition for high school-aged students.  Participants use a Vex Robotics Design System kit, which includes a radio controller, programmable microcontroller, and more than 500 parts for assembling autonomous bots.
   
• CASS Program -- Since 1989, St. Louis Community College has participated in the Cooperative Association of States for Scholarships (CASS) Program.  The international exchange program is sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development and managed by Georgetown University.  The program works with rural communities in Central America and the Caribbean to promote development through scholarships for technical training, leadership and community service. Currently, 14 hearing impaired students from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic are studying Basic Electronic and Computer Repair at Florissant Valley.