A team of four Year 8 and 9 students at Crestomere School will have an out-of-this-world experience on Thursday, January 26, as they virtually pilot a lunar rover on a “Moon-like” surface.
“Our classroom is going to be Mission Control for three hours,” said teacher Amanda De Atlee, who leads the team, which includes Hudson Hummel, Josiah Steeves, Ash Sargent and Carter Tylke.
The group, which calls itself the Stingrays, was one of four teams (and the only one from Alberta) to win the Lunar Research Challenge, a national space competition.
The competition is sponsored by Let’s Talk Science, Canadensys Aerospace Corporation and Avalon Space, with support from the Canadian Space Agency.
The prize is the opportunity to pilot a lunar rover, allowing students to interact with technology that will be part of Canada’s upcoming space mission.
The rovers designed by Canadansys will be Canada’s first rover to be sent to the moon – as early as 2026.
The Stingrays’ winning project was like a board game in which participants travel to the Moon amid terrain hazards while managing the rover’s battery and temperature in order to find ice deposits that could be used for water if the Moon could be used as space station, De Attlee said.
They then put together a research proposal for their ideal mission.
“For the mission they’re going to do this week, it’s going to be on the screen and their whole class is going to be involved in finding water,” she said, adding that it’s like a virtual reality experience where they’ll see the terrain and have to make decisions about where to drive.
“(They) will have a map, but they have to figure out where they are and work together to find ice deposits. Navigators will need to inform drivers.
“There are also scientists who will take readings and a group that monitors the data, and a group that monitors the battery and temperature data. All groups must communicate together to find as many ice deposits as possible.
Three facilitators are coming from Ontario for the “mission”.
“We will see increased activity around the Moon in the coming years, with Canada’s first astronaut likely to fly to the Moon in the next few years and Canada’s first lunar rover flying shortly thereafter,” Dr. Nadeem Ghafoor, CEO of Avalon Space, in a press release.
“It’s a real privilege to be able to bring the experience of these upcoming missions to a new generation and to see the wonder, discovery and ambition through their eyes reminds us of how we ourselves felt when we first began our journey working in space.” “
EducationPonoka CountySpace
Add Comment