NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement has selected five student teams to participate in a culminating event to the 2023 App Development Challenge (ADC), at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement has selected five student teams to participate in a culminating event to the 2023 App Development Challenge (ADC), at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The coding challenge invites middle and high school student teams to contribute to deep space exploration missions by developing solutions to real-world technical problems.
The ADC, a part of NASA’s Next Gen STEM project, gave students an opportunity to participate in NASA’s endeavors to land American astronauts, including the first woman and the first person of color, on the Moon. Artemis Generation students were prompted to create an application to visualize the Moon’s South Pole region and display essential information for navigating the lunar surface and receiving signals from Earth. NASA will make history by sending the first humans to explore the region near the lunar South Pole on Artemis III.
“I have never seen [my son] so excited to do schoolwork!” said one parent about the ADC. “[He] has been teaching himself coding for years by reading online. This has been his first opportunity to really apply what he’s learned in a practical manner.”
Participating teams worked over 10 weeks to develop their applications. In the process, they learned about the topography of the lunar South Pole, computer programming, trigonometry, and the complexities of remote communication and navigation with Earth-based assets.
By excelling at the coding challenge, the following three teams earned the chance to showcase their work to NASA leadership, tour NASA’s unique facilities, and meet industry leaders, in April 2023 at NASA Johnson:
- Edison Academy: Edison, New Jersey
- Fairmont Preparatory Academy: Anaheim, California
- Rutherford B. Hayes High School: Delaware, Ohio
In addition, two more schools were selected as honorable mentions to present their work virtually to NASA leadership in April 2023:
- Falcon Cove Middle School: Weston, Florida
- Powhatan Middle School: Powhatan, Virginia
“I knew the opportunity wasn’t something I wanted to miss out on,” said a Rutherford B. Hayes High School senior about the ADC. “We all knew each other, but we would never have had an excuse to do something like this together. It was really fun to get the five of us together and learning [sic] to work as a team.” (Battishill, 2022)
Reference: Battishill. “Students at Hayes submit app to NASA.” The Delaware Gazette. December 15, 2022.
Learn more about the App Development Challenge here!