July 30, 2019
Soundbites: UW hosts student robotics ‘moon landing’ challenge
For journalists
Soundbites and b-roll are available for download here.
A robotics challenge July 20th at the UW featured twenty-eight middle and high school teams from Forks to Walla Walla and from Bellingham to Olympia. The event marked a half-century since the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon and two U.S. astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked its surface.
Each team flew a drone that attempted to drop and retrieve a lunar module designed by the group on a high-resolution map of the moon’s surface. Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots were programmed to explore the surface and retrieve rock samples. The goal is to prepare the next generation of scientists for the “next giant leap”, and broaden the pipeline for future aeronautics careers.
The Apollo 50 Next Giant Leap Student Challenge, or ANGLeS Challenge, has attracted 4,000 students from across the country since it launched in January. UW is the regional host for Washington state as well as the national hub for 15 similar events taking place this week across the country. The twenty-eight teams from across Washington qualified for the finals.
The challenge event is the latest outreach effort by NASA’s Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline (NESSP), which seeks to attract underrepresented students into space careers.
More information at https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/07/17/uw-hosts-student-robotics-challenge-friday-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-11-moon-landing/
Kiyomi Taguchi, UW News video producer: ktaguchi@uw.edu
Tag(s): College of the Environment • Department of Earth and Space Sciences • Robert Winglee • Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium
