Technical Contests as an Effective Approach to Stimulate Youth in STEM Education

This paper presents the events and contests intended for high school students and faculty students organized by or attended by the Mechatronics and Robotics Department, University of Craiova. One objective of those actions is to attract high school graduates to continue studies in the engineering field; the second objective is to reduce the abandon rate among enrolled students; the third objective is to provide a connection between students and the economic organizations acting in IT &C / production field. In this paper we will present how those objectives are achieved.