Eight teams of college students will arrive on the 91爆料 campus Aug. 19 to go to the moon 鈥� or at least a simulated version of it.

In 2020, 91爆料 received a nearly $500,000 grant to run one of in which participants turn a model lunar lava tube into a habitat suitable for housing humans on the moon or Mars.

Six university-based programs were funded through , which aims to build knowledge and introduce students to critical topics and technologies related to the Artemis program.

has a launch window of Aug. 29-Sept. 5 and will be an uncrewed test mission for a program that will eventually send humans to the lunar surface. Meanwhile, at 91爆料, student teams will put their rovers through a lunar challenge course to generate maps, locate resources and seal off tubes as potential living quarters.

鈥淪kylight features have been observed on the moon, which could lead to lava tubes on what are essentially underground tunnels,鈥� said , deputy director of the , or WSGC. 鈥淚f we wanted to explore those, the idea is that you would send a rover down before you sent an astronaut. If you sent a rover down there and it looked good, you might use that structure for something else, like a human habitat.鈥�

WSGC, housed in the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is comprised of more than a dozen institutions within Washington state. Central Washington University, Heritage University, Seattle Central College, Washington State University and more.

STEM majors at two- and four-year colleges were invited to participate in the Artemis challenge, with WSGC providing robot kits, other related materials and stipends. Denmon said one of the main goals was to reach schools that don鈥檛 normally engage with NASA challenges.

Several tribal colleges 鈥� including Northwest Indian College in Bellingham and Salish Kootenai College in Montana 鈥� were heavily involved in the first stage, where students worked to establish what was needed to run the challenge.

Along with the 91爆料, teams from Pierce College and Everett Community College will participate in this month鈥檚 final. University of Texas at El Paso is sending two teams. Five of the eight teams are from community colleges. Of the participants planning to attend, more than 40% are women and more than 50% are from historically underrepresented groups.

鈥淲e just did a lot of specific and targeted outreach to try and work within our networks and expand out from there,鈥� Denmon said. 鈥淚 emailed faculty at community colleges that had relevant programs in the state to let them know we were running a challenge and it was free to their students.鈥�

The second part of the challenge collided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, so teams mostly collaborated with faculty members at their respective locations. The award was originally for two years, but WSGC was asked to stretch to three years due to COVID.

Phase three was essentially a restart as students worked on their rovers through the 2022 spring and summer quarters. During the summer, they completed weekly workshops with 91爆料 graduate assistants. Now, they鈥檒l travel to 91爆料 for the day-long finale.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a challenge, not a competition,鈥� Denmon said. 鈥淭he main thing is they鈥檙e running their rovers in a dark, model lunar lava tube. We have a challenge course that we set up. They must navigate obstacles and complete all their mission objectives.鈥�

Each team will complete the challenge based on their level of expertise. For example, teams with little to no programming experience will use manually controlled robots provided by WSGC. At the other end of the spectrum, teams with programming and engineering or mechanical design experience will use custom-built rovers with autonomous navigation.

鈥淭his is the culmination,鈥� Denmon said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to do one big, exciting event. They get to run the rovers and see what they learned.鈥�

For more information, contact the Space Grant Consortium at nasa@uw.edu.

A robotics challenge July 20th at the 91爆料 featured twenty-eight middle and high school teams from Forks to Walla Walla and from Bellingham to Olympia. The event marked a half-century since the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon and two U.S. astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked its surface.

Each team flew a drone that attempted to drop and retrieve a lunar module designed by the group on a high-resolution map of the moon’s surface. Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots were programmed to explore the surface and retrieve rock samples. The goal is to prepare the next generation of scientists for the “next giant leap”, and broaden the pipeline for future aeronautics careers.

The Apollo 50 Next Giant Leap Student Challenge, or聽, has attracted 4,000 students from across the country since it聽. 91爆料 is the regional host for Washington state as well as the national hub for 15 similar events taking place this week across the country. The twenty-eight teams from across Washington qualified for the finals.

The challenge event is the latest outreach effort by NASA’s Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline (NESSP), which seeks to attract underrepresented students into space careers.

More information 补迟听/news/2019/07/17/uw-hosts-student-robotics-challenge-friday-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-11-moon-landing/聽 聽 聽 聽

Kiyomi Taguchi, 91爆料 News video producer:聽ktaguchi@uw.edu

A robotics challenge July 20th at the 91爆料 featured twenty-eight teams of middle and high schoolers from Forks to Walla Walla and from Bellingham to Olympia. The event marked a half-century since the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon and two U.S. astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked its surface.

Each team flew a drone that attempted to drop and retrieve a lunar module designed by the group on a high-resolution map of the moon’s surface. Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots were programmed to explore the surface and retrieve rock samples. The goal is to prepare the next generation of scientists for the “next giant leap”, and broaden the pipeline for future aeronautics careers.

The Apollo 50 Next Giant Leap Student Challenge, or聽, has attracted 4,000 students from across the country since it聽. 91爆料 is the regional host for Washington state as well as the national hub for 15 similar events taking place this week across the country. The twenty-eight teams from across Washington qualified for the finals.

The challenge event is the latest outreach effort by NASA’s Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline (NESSP), which seeks to attract underrepresented students into space careers.

More information 补迟听/news/2019/07/17/uw-hosts-student-robotics-challenge-friday-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-11-moon-landing/聽 聽 聽 聽
Kiyomi Taguchi, 91爆料 News video producer:聽ktaguchi@uw.edu

[Note: This post has been updated with photos and video from the July 19 event. More photos are available at .]

This Saturday will mark a half century since the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon and two U.S. astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked its surface. At the 91爆料, the NASA-funded , or NEESP, is marking the occasion with a robotics challenge for middle and high school students from across the state.

The Apollo 50 Next Giant Leap Student Challenge, or , has attracted 4,000 students from across the country since it . 91爆料 is the regional host for Washington state as well as the national hub for 15 similar events taking place this week across the country. Twenty-eight teams from across Washington have qualified for the finals.

Opening ceremonies will begin Friday at 8:30 a.m. in Kane Hall 130, featuring Rickey Hall, 91爆料’s vice president for Minority Affairs & Diversity, and 91爆料 alumna Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, a retired NASA astronaut.

Teams will complete the challenge throughout the day in Kane Hall 130, while using Mary Gates Hall as a warmup space. The five-member teams of 5^th– through 12^th-grade students hail from Forks to Walla Walla, and from Bellingham to Olympia. The day’s activities also include a STEM career panel and lab tours. All the events are open to the public.

The challenge event is the latest outreach effort from the NESSP, which seeks to attract underrepresented students into space careers.

“We provide outreach to students across the country so that they will be inspired to contribute to future developments on the ground and into space,” said NESSP director , a 91爆料 professor of Earth and space sciences. “As in the Apollo era, innovations being developed for spaceflight have major benefits, often unforeseen at the time, for society.”

During Friday’s events, teams will recreate the events of July 20, 1969. Each team will fly a remote-controlled drone from a starting line to land on an 8-by-10-foot map of the moon’s surface in the same spot where Apollo 11 touched down. They will then use a Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot they have programmed to explore the lunar surface, bring back a rock sample and leave a culturally significant object. Each team has built a replica of the 1969 lunar lander, and high-school aged teams will also use the drone to retrieve their lunar module and bring it back to the starting line.

Teams have also designed a mission patch and uniform to wear to the challenge. Students will get points both for how accurately they can complete the challenge and for their overall participation in event activities.

“The landing itself is etched in my mind 鈥� even after so many years 鈥� because it demonstrated that extraordinary things could be achieved if people had big visions and worked together,” Winglee said.

Winners are scheduled to be announced at 6 p.m. The top-performing team at each location will get to visit a NASA space center later this summer.

Founded in 2016, NESSP is an outreach and education program that brings hands-on science activities to middle and high school students and educators across the Northwest region.

“The ANGLeS Challenge is a way to diversify STEM by having the communities identify themselves in a creative way, while celebrating the Apollo 11 mission,” said NESSP associate director . “The dream is to have these amazing engineers and scientists who are fully prepared to take on the positions at NASA and other industries that are hungry for local students to participate.”

###

For more information, reporters can contact communications officer Chris Wallish at 206-221-7743 or cwallish@uw.edu. Photos are available at . Reporters can access of the event.

While many people across the country donned viewing glasses and prepared to watch Monday’s solar eclipse, a group of 100 teenagers from tribes across the Pacific Northwest launched balloons thousands of feet into the air, gaining a novel perspective of the eclipse 鈥� and the chance to send meaningful artifacts to the edge of space during a memorable moment in history.

The high school students released their balloons from Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs land in north central Oregon, directly in the that allows viewers to see the moon completely cover the sun. Close to 400 people, mainly tribal members and students, gathered to watch. The event, organized by 91爆料-based and the , was the largest effort involving Native American tribes during the eclipse.

In addition to launching the giant weather balloons, students from each school attached culturally significant items, called payloads, to the balloons and sent them high into the sky. Their artifacts nearly reached space before returning to the ground.

“This is the first time many of the students get to participate in a cutting-edge experiment of this type,” said the consortium’s director, , a 91爆料 professor of Earth and space sciences. “Seeing their own payloads at the rim of space is quite exciting. This different perspective will hopefully awaken other ideas for gaining different perspectives on their own lives and their own career paths.”

Over the past couple of years, consortium staff visited many of the schools participating in the eclipse balloon launch, introducing students to space research and various NASA projects. The goal is to bring STEM-related topics to the students in culturally relevant ways, said outreach specialist Isabel Carrera Zamanillo.

The eclipse project is a tangible way to further involve these students.

“Participation in this eclipse is just a next step for students,” said Carrera Zamanillo, who is also a graduate fellow with the 91爆料’s Center for Environmental Politics. “This is a continuing effort from two years of visiting tribes, and it is a nice event where we can congregate together.”

Each of the 12 student teams created a small payload to attach to the high-altitude balloons. These items are important artifacts to students and included carved wooden instruments, feathers, whistles and a small paddle. Some students also designed electronic sensors that were placed in the balloons and delivered data on temperature, altitude and distance traveled as they soared high into the sky.

The balloons can reach altitudes of 110,000 feet and were fitted with cameras and GPS trackers. The four balloons were released in pairs before the start of the total eclipse, with the hope that the cameras would capture a unique perspective.

As expected, the balloons popped after two and a half hours of flight, and parachutes helped the artifacts and electronic equipment fall safely to the ground. The items landed about 20 miles from the launch site and teams planned to recover them with the help of GPS. About 35 91爆料-affiliated volunteers, including undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty, joined consortium staff in Oregon to help with the event.

NASA released several similar weather balloons in conjunction with the solar eclipse 鈥� including a launch off the Oregon coast 鈥� that intended to provide different views along the path of the eclipse.

The consortium’s leaders hope this experience will encourage students to build payloads that could hitch a ride on current space-flight missions. Blue Origin, for example, has carrying capacity for such artifacts, Winglee said.

“We can encourage the students and say, ‘Look, you’ve done high-altitude balloons, why don’t you go all the way?’ I think this is a steppingstone for students,” he said.