Challenges/Prizes/Competitions: January 2012 Archives

World's Largest Rocket Contest Helps Aspiring STEM Leaders Take Off

"Nearly 700 teams of middle and high school students across 48 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands are gearing up for the 2012 Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world's largest student rocket contest and a critical piece of the aerospace industry's workforce development pipeline. The 10th anniversary competition is the most challenging in the history of the event. This year, each team is tasked with designing and building a rocket carrying a two egg payload to 800 feet and back during a 43- to 47-second flight without cracking. A strict limit on liftoff weight forces students to focus on designing the payload bay while building a lighter, stronger rocket. The top 100 teams will advance to the National Finals May 12 at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va."

European finalists selected in Space Lab student competition

"Sixty space experiment proposals have been selected as finalists in the YouTube Space Lab student science competition, co-sponsored by ESA. Judges must now select the two top entries to be flown on the International Space Station. ESA, NASA, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency have joined Google, YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures in an international science competition that challenges students aged 14-16 and 17-18 to design an experiment that can be conducted in microgravity on the ISS."

NASA Joins MIT and DARPA for Out-of-This-World Student Robotic Challenge

"NASA will join the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and high school student teams from the U.S. and abroad for the third annual Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge on Monday, Jan. 23. The event will take place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Mass., and be broadcast live on NASA Television from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST."

Montana Students Pick Winning Names for Moon Craft

"Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011. The names were submitted by fourth graders from the Emily Dickinson Elementary School. Nearly 900 classrooms with more than 11,000 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia participated in the contest. Previously named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL-A and -B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft begin science operations in March, after a launch in September 2011."

X PRIZE Foundation and Qualcomm Foundation Set to Revolutionize Healthcare With Launch of $10 Million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE

"The X PRIZE Foundation and Qualcomm Foundation today announced the launch of the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, a global competition to revolutionize healthcare. In this competition, teams will leverage technology innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and wireless sensing -- much like the medical Tricorder of Star Trek(R) fame -- to make medical diagnoses independent of a physician or healthcare provider. The goal of the competition is to drive development of devices that will give consumers access to their state of health in the palm of their hand."

Fifty-Seven Student Rocket Teams to Take NASA Launch Challenge

"More than 500 students from middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in 29 states will show their rocketeering prowess in the 2011-12 NASA Student Launch Projects flight challenge. The teams will build and test large-scale rockets of their own design in April 2012. NASA created the twin Student Launch Projects to spark students' imaginations, challenge their problem-solving skills and give them real-world experience. The project aims to complement the science, mathematics and engineering lessons they study in the classroom."

The 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition Kicks Off Saturday in Cleveland

"The FIRST Robotics Competition kickoff marks the beginning of the season for high school students to design and build a robot to compete in a tournament against a field of competitors. NASA, the largest sponsor of the FIRST Robotics Competition, will broadcast the kickoff for over 100 local students at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, at Cuyahoga Community College, Unified Technologies Center. The event will air nationwide on NASA Television from Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester."

SGAC-EIC Space Entrepreneurship Paper Competition

"The Space Generation Advisory Council is pleased to announce its partnership with the International Astronautical Federation's Entrepreneurship and Investment Committee (EIC) to organise and run the 2012 IAF-EIC/SGAC Emerging Commercial Space Paper Competition for Students and Young Professionals - $pace is Business! The competition challenges students and young professionals worldwide to develop new ideas and perspectives on opportunities and challenges facing space entrepreneurs and investors today. SGAC invites paper submissions addressing and engaging themes of interest to the Entrepreneurship and Investment Committee of the International Astronautical Federation."