Announcements

MAVRIC, a Make to Innovate team from Iowa State University that is sponsored by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, competed in the 2017 University Rover Challenge held in Hanksville, Utah. The competition, which took place from June 1-3, featured a record 82 teams from across the world.

Based on a video submission and report, the URC trims the field to 36 teams that are then invited to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in the southern desert of Utah. MAVRIC was one of the 36 teams invited to compete in Utah. High temperatures, dust and sand were just a few of the elements the teams and their rovers had to deal with as they aimed to complete four tasks: Equipment Servicing, Science Cache, and new this year was the Extreme Delivery and Traversal and a fully autonomous mode task.

The MAVRIC team faced many challenges upon arrival to the MDRS. Electrical issues caused a problem with control of the arm on the first task which was the Extreme Delivery and Traversal task. After the team debugged many of the issues, they competed the next day in the Equipment Servicing task only to have an electrical short that disabled the rover shortly into the task. On the final day, the team was able to compete in the Science Cache task only to have another problem with the rovers drive motors. The team was able to compete to the end, but the electrical issues resulted in a final score of 146.6 points and put them at 31st place.

“The MAVRIC team learned a lot from this experience and they worked very hard on the rover, often working through the night to make repairs to the rover.” said Matthew Nelson, Make to Innovate Director and also accompanied the team on the trip.

Nelson also stated that the extreme environment in the desert often causes electrical systems to fail. The team is currently planning on a new design for the rover that can compete in the URC in 2018.

Students at Pella Jefferson Intermediate School in Pella, Iowa took part in a water rocket launch during a study on the idea of forces affecting motion. The rocket launch that the 5th grade students participated in was an exercise adopted from an experience their teachers had at Marshall Space Flight Center, as a part of the ISGC Partner Schools Program. Josh Steenhoek and Jill Payne, who teach 5th grade in Pella, built water rockets and tested them while they were at MSFC, although with varied results.

“None of our rockets performed close to what the students are doing today,” Steenhoek said. “Over the years we have adapted the curriculum and found that it is the perfect STEM culminating event.”

As part of an additional science unit that takes place four days a week during the school day, students worked in the area of physics, asking questions and running investigations to test their hypotheses. In the spring, those studies transitioned to paper rockets which were much cheaper and easier to build.

“Additionally, we had some cross over time in math where students worked on ratio, rates, proportion, and probability,” Steenhoek said. “This time was not only a new area of math, but it also crossed over into our scaling up thinking for science.”

During the month of May, the students were presented with an engineering challenge: design a rocket to travel as far as possible. The students who had science expertise  merged with those who were out of the room for extension or support during this time.  Their science understanding was shared, lingering ideas were tested, and designs were explored.  Finally, the students scaled up their idea from paper rockets into a water rocket that was launched.

Despite facing a stiff wind, student’s from different 5th grade classes in Pella launched their water rockets in May, and then charted the results into box and whisker plots.

The results are in and Cyclone Space Mining finished second overall at NASA’s 2017 Robotic Mining Competition.

The team from Iowa State University finished with a score of 70.6 out of 100 points. The team performed especially well in the Outreach category – where they scored 19.5 out of 20 – as well as the Social Media/Public Engagement category – where they racked up 9.5 of the 10 points possible. The team nabbed second place overall finishes in both of these categories.

The University of Alabama took the top spot with 96 of the total 100 points, posting perfect scores in the categories of Outreach, Presentation, and Mining.

To see the full list of schools and scores, click here.

Keith Summerville, former ISGC campus coordinator for Drake University, was honored on May 9 at an award ceremony. Summerville served as campus coordinator from June 2011 until March 2017. The ISGC is grateful to Summerville for his hard work and leadership over the past six years.

In April, Maria Bohorquez, department chair and professor of chemistry was named Summerville’s successor at Drake.

The Iowa Space Grant Consortium has announced two scholarship programs for undergraduate students for the 2017-2018 school year.

Applications are currently ongoing for the NASA Iowa Space Grant Scholarship Program and the Preservice Educator STEM Scholarship.

The NASA ISGC Scholarship Program awards scholarships to support undergraduate students pursuing research opportunities in STEM disciplines that support NASA’s mission. This scholarship supports the research projects of undergraduate students at ISGC Core Institutions. To learn more about the NASA ISGC Scholarship program, click here.

The Preservice Educator STEM Scholarship supports undergraduate students pursuing a degree in preservice education for STEM fields that support NASA’s mission. The $5,000 scholarship is available to students from Drake, Iowa State, University of Iowa, University of Northern Iowa, DMACC, or Loras College. To learn more about the Preservice Educator STEM Scholarship, click here.

Applications for both scholarship programs will close on June 30, 2017. For questions, please email isgc@iastate.edu.

 

 

FOX’s Xploration Outer Space is hosting its 3rd annual Student Astronaut Contest and looking for one STEM student to live in the HI-SEAS Mars simulation habitation in Hawaii. The winner will be featured in an episode of Xploration Outer Space and go through a Mars astronaut experience with Emmy-nomianted TV host and MIT engineer, Emily Calandrelli.

For the contest, Xploration Outer Space wants you to create a short video and answer three questions.

1. Why do you think it is important to explore Mars?
2. How would this experience help launch your career in the space industry?
3. Why do you think we should select you as our next student astronaut?

The deadline to enter the contest is May 28, 2017. For more information and to apply, visit xplorationstation.com/contest.