National Video Game Challenge

The National STEM Video Game Challenge is an annual competition that students grades 5-8 can compete in. Students design a video game and submit their final product to the committee using a written design document, a free platform playable game (Scratch, Game Maker, Prototype, Unity, etc), or an open platform playable game (Flash, RPG Maker, Game Salad, Stagecast Creator). These designs are then reviewed by the judging committee and the winners in each category are announced a few months after the submissions are due. Winning group members get $1,000 and a lifetime subscription to GameStar Mechanics.
This would be a great resource for middle school teachers to use to show students how what they have been learning in school can be applied to a potential future career for them and expose them to new ideas of what they might be interested in for the future. Designing this video game requires students to think about systems, problem solve, collaborate with others, practice communication, and computer design and computational thinking. These are all skills that are necessary for people entering STEM fields to have and it is great for students to begin building these skills while still young.
 http://stemchallenge.org/about/challenge-rules/