ASU Prep Poly students win NASA challenge
April 29, 2022 — When NASA’s Blue Origin rocket launches in January 2023, its cargo will embrace a 4-by-4-by-8-inch container that weighs a bit greater than a pound.
Inside that container might be two sponges, a syringe, a motherboard, two cameras, LED mild strips and the intelligence and curiosity of six students at Arizona State University’s Preparatory Academy Polytechnic STEM High School.
Those six students — Deaglan Salado, Hafsa Kaysan, Samantha Llagas, Elijah Linman, Ryan Robinson and Sawyer Ganes — had been winners in NASA’s TechRise Challenge and are being given $1,500 to design an experiment that can happen throughout the January flight.
The experiment, as titled within the three-page written presentation despatched to NASA: “How will Hydrophobic and Non-Hydrophobic Sponges React with Water in Microgravity?”
Before moving into sponges and area, it needs to be famous what the six students already completed simply by having their venture chosen. Six hundred colleges from throughout the nation despatched in entries, and colleges might ship in a couple of entry. (ASU Poly submitted greater than a dozen). Of these a whole lot of entries, solely 57 had been chosen.
Robinson: “We submitted it, and then I was thinking nothing was going to happen after that.”
Ganes: “We all submitted it just for our grade for our class, and when we were chosen, we were like, ‘How did this happen?’”
Llagas: “It’s just so weird.”
Speaking of bizarre, how does a highschool scholar give you the thought to see if sponges take in water in area like they do, effectively, in your rest room?
Teacher Irvin Goutcher mentioned every of his lessons had a brainstorming session, concepts had been tossed round, somebody talked about sponges, after which the project-based studying class, which the six students attend, created the plan and wrote the paper and diagram submitted to NASA.
The experiment, whereas sounding a bit intimidating — Non-hydrophobic sponges? Microgravity? — actually isn’t. Hydrophobic means waterproof. Hydrophobic sprays for, say, waterproofing sneakers might be discovered on Amazon.
One of the sponges that goes into the container might be sprayed. (And, sure, we’re speaking a few sponge you may buy at Walmart). The different sponge might be non-hydrophobic. The experiment will decide how the totally different sponges react in microgravity.
“We just want to know what the effect of gravity is on that,” Goutcher mentioned. “Is the gravity what’s pulling the water into the sponge, or is it the effect the sponge has with some sort of capillary action where it will absorb the water whether there’s gravity or not?”
The outcomes of the experiment might have sensible functions in future area missions.
“We know that storing water in space is one of the things NASA wants to achieve for future travel because people need water,” Kaysan mentioned. “It could have many uses, even for growing vegetation.”
While the premise of the experiment is straightforward sufficient, the execution of it’s exceedingly tough. All of the objects which have to suit into the container — the cameras, sponges, lights, syringe, and many others. — can’t weigh greater than a pound due to the load restrict set by NASA. The students are pondering of utilizing micro-cameras that match onto a canine’s collar.
The experiment might be programmed mechanically so it can detect the launch, after which activate when the 11- to 16-minute flight hits microgravity.
“We have one shot,” Salado mentioned.
The syringe might be powered by an actuator that controls the timing of the injection. The students will watch the experiment from ASU Poly, assuming the cameras within the container work, and report it on a micro-SD reminiscence card. Once the rocket returns to Earth, NASA will ship the container to the students — hopefully.
“They said that part, they don’t know, because sometimes rockets land nice and sometimes they don’t,” Goutcher mentioned.
Via Zoom, the students met with NASA officers for the primary time on Monday. Their accomplished container field must be shipped to NASA by the top of September, however Goutcher is hoping the students may have it completed by the top of May, to coincide with the top of the semester.
Until then, the six students will write code for the motherboard, discover sponges appropriate for the experiment, check pressurized syringes and recognize day-after-day that NASA is taking their concept into area.
“Yeah,” Robinson mentioned. “That’s cool.”
Top picture: Students at ASU Prep Poly will construct a 500-gram, 4-by-4-by-8-inch enclosed experiment to check how hydrophobic and non-hydrophobic sponges react with water in microgravity. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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