This event couldn’t have been better timed. Unbeknownst to me, October 19th was a day that space pioneer, Robert Goddard had called his “Anniversary Day” — the day he thought that it just might be possible to humans to break free of gravity and travel to other planets.
Oct 19th, last Wed, turned out to be a day filled with hands-on experiences for our students who got to hear about (and see) rockets, small-space satellites, robots that could some day work in ‘teams’ or swarms on a distant planet, how to design a landing craft and parachute like the Phoenix Mars Lander, and of course sit inside a portable, inflatable planetarium
Here are some of the highlights in pictures.
SpaceTrex Group from ASU launched a rocket and talked about Small-space satellites
Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft, which lifted off on an Antares rocket Oct 17th (two days before Space Day) carrying 5,290 pounds of cargo for NASA to the International Space Station.
The little bot that runs on Arduino, could be part of a bot swarm!
Autonomous Collective Systems Lab let students program and run robots in a Rover obstacle avoidance challenge
Hands-on session on planets and what ‘designing’ a new planet might involve.
StarLab, the inflatable planetarium was here for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades.
My third year of collaborating with the Orbital ATK team
Arizona State University’s teams
StarLab team from ASU
Hoipolloireport 