The Ten80 STEM Initiative™ consists of STEM curriculum that can be used as CLUB, CAMP and core CLASS implementations. The Ten80-NSBE STEM League competition consists of a Face-to-Face (F2F) local and regional Invitationals for Racing and Autonomous Vehicle Challenges, and an optional national Web-Based Points Race. Students in grades 6 – 12 form Ten80 STEM Challenge teams that use either 1:10 or 1:16 scale cars and mimic professional motorsports teams.

For the Racing Challenge, cars come out of the kit fully operational, so the first weeks of engagement are spent learning how systems operate and how to organize data, rather than following build directions. After being certified in mechanical systems, data and problem-solving, students spend the duration of the program year modifying the car to improve performance.

For the Autonomous Vehicle Challenge, students practice their electromechanical skills to assemble the vehicle, and then turn to physical computing, incorporating sensors and a microcontroller to program the car to perform tasks such as lane-following and obstacle avoidance. In addition to engineering performance, teams for both categories are challenged to tackle Enterprise skills through the curriculum, including project management, marketing and business development.

NSBE’s Ten80 STEM Initiative finals take place at the NSBE Annual Convention where teams only compete with other NSBE chapter teams. After the conference, NSBE teams can earn invitations to the National Finals for Ten80 teams in spring, to compete with other teams across the US and China.