Anybody aware of any good (hands-on) engineering competitions out there for midwestern US high school students?

http://www.aia-aerospace.org/aianews/features/team_america/. This one is a model rockery challenge, if you build rockets at all. Its a bit far advanced this year, but you could still do it if you wanted. It is team-based.

I would love to do that, and I think I'd have a lot of fun with it, but...

 

"Only the first 750 teams that submit a completed application, including payment, postmarked no later than November 30, 2005, will be allowed to compete in the 2006 contest."

 

... Maybe next year.

Oh, right, sorry. It is fun though. You should do it next year. Actually, no don't. Because then there's more competition... .

the ISEF. I'm entering, it should be pretty fun (though I'm entering in biology).

 

http://www.sciserv.org/isef/ of course you'd have to enter for next year, as this year's competition starts in a week.

Science Olympiad is a pretty big competition. The only midwest state it isn't offered in is Arkansas. I have never competed in it but my roommate competed in high school and really liked it. He even goes back to his H.S. to help their current team.

http://www.soinc.org/contact/links.htm

That's the website to look at your states Science Olympiad.

I've done SO for two years and it was really fun -- mostly because our school was so low-key about it, it was more fun science than competitive science. No, the two don't go together.