In a first for one of the largest oil and gas conferences in the world, high school students participated in the 2017 OTC Energy Challenge on May 3.

The purpose, according to Joe Fowler, chairman of the OTC board of directors: Give high school students real-world challenges in offshore energy to inspire them and also for the industry to learn more about the next generation.

“Our objectives are to challenge and inspire students by asking them to solve real-world challenges, to discover new technologies and innovation from the next generation of engineers and scientists, to expose students to the wide range of STEM opportunities in the energy industry and to learn more what drives and motivates young STEM students,” Fowler said.

Fowler said the idea for the energy challenge was brought to the OTC board by Cindy Yeilding, senior vice president of BP America, to address the need of getting people exposed to the energy industry at a young age.

“If you talk to a lot of people in the energy industry, they first became aware of it and got exposed to as early as high school so we’re trying to get that done,” he said.

Yeilding, who also served as the session chairperson, said she wanted a fresh look at relevant real-life problems.

“At OTC, we speak to students all the time. We bring them in, we show them what we do, we show them the trade floor. The idea behind the OTC Energy Challenge was to learn from the kids, to listen to them and hear what’s important to them, to see how they solve real-world problems and to learn about what the next generation of scientists and engineers are interested in,” she said.

In the first-ever challenge, 39 high school students throughout Houston competed in 10 teams to develop solutions for one of five problems covering areas such as remote offshore power, offshore wind energy, remote monitoring, decommissioning and facility design.

Participating high schools included the Energy Institute, Kashmere High School, The Kinkaid School, Madison High School, Milby High School, St. John’s School, Stratford High School, Westside High School and the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy.

The overall winner of the inaugural event was a team of students from Madison High School for their solution to repurpose decommissioned oil rigs as their very own offshore wind farms. The team also received the Baker Hughes Award and a $5,000 cash prize.

The Madison team was comprised of: Victor Contreras, grade 12; Terrell Jackson, grade 11; Azucena Lopez, grade 11; and Tah’Jenae Merchant, grade 11. Ivondela Eakins served as the team’s coach.

Merchant said the hardest part of the challenge was taking the numbers and transforming them into something the team could use.

“We feel like we found a happy medium and we wanted to use a three-part system,” she said. “We have utility scale batteries—not your Duracell or car batteries, an HVDC converter system and also the pipeline. So we used the power umbilical to transport the energy from our platform to shore.”

Each team of students was also aided by an academic coach and industry mentor.

Chris Walton, a riser engineer at BP who was a mentor for a team from Kashmere High School, said he learned the industry has a bright future ahead from his mentorship.

Walton added he hopes his mentorship has prepared the students in the program for their next step, whether it’s in a STEM field or not.

“What I get the most from working with the students was being able to understand everybody learns differently and being able to find the right way, the best ways, to support their learning needs to try to make them successful in whatever they do by answering any questions they might have,” he said.

In addition to the student presentations, a panel of students, mentors and coaches participated in a discussion during the OTC session on the different perspectives on STEM careers and the oil and gas industry.

Astronaut Sunita L. Williams, a veteran of two space missions, also spoke at the session to describe STEM career opportunities—within and outside of the oil and gas industry.