NASA recently selected 75 student teams to begin an engineering design challenge to build rovers that will compete next spring at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center near the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Participating teams represent 35 colleges and universities, 38 high schools, and two middle schools from 20 states, Puerto Rico, and 16 other nations from around the world. Two of the 75 teams were middle schools.
Peter Tlusty is an RAS member, a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, a Design & Technology instructor at Saint Mary’s Catholic School, and a frequent participant in astronomy outreach events. His students were selected as one of the only two middle schools to compete in the challenge! Selection of Peter’s team to compete in the challenge is a most impressive achievement and speaks highly of his leadership and the work of his students. They were able to hold their own with high school and even college teams! Congratulations to Peter and your students from your friends and fellow members at RAS!
The Saint Mary’s team consists of of 28 students, made up of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. They will design and build a rover to navigate a simulated Moon and Mars terrain obstacle course. While on the course, the rover must stop and perform sample collection and scientific tasks. The challenge includes not only the design and engineering of the rover, but acquiring and maintaining required materials and tools, implementing a safety plan, creating and adhering to a timeline, establishing a social media presence, creating a STEM outreach program at the school, and formulating a budget and fund-raising plan. The students will continue their work for the next steps in the challenge, a design review report, which will be presented to a team from NASA. The final competition will be held April 11 – 12, 2025 at the US Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.
The competition is one of the agency’s Artemis Student Challenges, encouraging students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is recognized as NASA’s leading international student challenge, known as the 31st annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge. It aims to put competitors in the mindset of NASA’s Artemis campaign as they pitch an engineering design for a lunar terrain vehicle which simulates astronauts piloting a vehicle, exploring the lunar surface while overcoming various obstacles.
NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges reflect the goals of the Artemis campaign, which seeks to land the next US human missions to the Moon while establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration.
To learn more about Human Exploration Rover Challenge, please visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/nasa-human-exploration-rover-challenge
Nice work Peter!