May 9, 1997

Ed Campion
Johnson Space Center
(281) 483-5111

Release: J97-17

NOTE TO EDITORS:

JSC Engineers, Fifth Graders Cap Project With Solar-Powered Race May 13

Fifth-grade students at Ed White Elementary School, El Lago, will highlight a week spent working with NASA engineers to design and build solar-powered model cars with a race at 1 p.m. on May 13 in the school's parking lot.

Media are invited to attend the race at Ed White Elementary School, 1708 Les Talley Drive, El Lago. Reporters planning to attend the race should contact the main office at Ed White Elementary at (281) 326-5597. In the event of rain or heavily overcast skies, the race will be postponed until 1 p.m. on May 14.

The innovative educational project, called "Solar Power-up", is co-sponsored by the Texas Solar Energy Society, which provided solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, motors, gears and other parts for the model cars. In addition to teaching students about alternate energy sources and aerodynamics, the project also teaches the students to work in engineering design teams and make group engineering decisions as they construct the models. NASA engineers assisting with the project are Mike Ewert, Cindy Cross, Scott Askew, Mike Rouen, John Cornwell and Larissa Smit.

text-only version of this release