Five North High School students showcased their projects on Friday, Dec. 8, as part of a national competition held by NASA.
“Based on data from NASA, we will combine our love of technology, science, and math to collaborate, problem solve, and create,” said third-year student leader Sujal Pokhrel. said in an email to the Register.
The NASA App Development Challenge (ADC) is an annual coding competition for middle and high school students nationwide that challenges them to create visualizations of the lunar region for mission planning.
According to NASA’s website, this year, “Teams of middle school or high school students will create 10 videos demonstrating an app that uses lunar topography data to visualize the lunar south pole region and display information essential for navigation and communication.” It will be submitted within a week.”
This app is dedicated to the landing of Artemis, which will be the base for the next moon landing.
More than 100 teams are participating in the contest, and North High School is home to the only team from Iowa, the Frostbite.
In addition to Pokhrel, the team is made up of junior Champ Pacific Mukiza, junior Jeffrey Allen, virtual campus junior Mos Leuven, and sophomore Romas Pokhrel.
“Our process through this project has certainly not been a smooth and easy path,” Mukiza said. “…Initially, we started this project by understanding what role each person would play.”
And from there, Frostbyte was born.
What does the Frostbyte app do?
The project that Frostbyte completed is different from an app you download on your phone, but the group created a project that shows what a moon landing would look like based on data provided by NASA.
The data included images of Artemis’ location, studies of the moon’s topography, visibility, and inclination.
With this information, Frostbyte used software such as Python with the help of club advisor Jessi Nunes, an educator at North High School. Using this software, she was able to create her 3D visualization of the moon’s surface and use it to decipher where and how a landing would work most advantageously.
The team jumped over hurdles such as the foreignness of visualizing data on a plane they had never worked on before, using their resources and converting it into something they knew how to manipulate: Cartesian coordinates. I had to figure out a way to convert it.
Rachel Shannon, assistant director of education and outreach for the NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium and assistant professor in the Iowa State University College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the Frostbite project is comparable to what she has seen students do. Then he spoke.
“Often, for engineers and scientists, one of the most difficult things in science is communication,” Shannon says. “We are very technical, but the fact that they can talk about all the technical things they have learned makes it very easy to understand. that That’s a difficult skill. ”
Why is this NASA challenge so important?
The idea is not just to compete with Frostbyte, but to promote STEM education and introduce it to young students.
“Their developments (STEM and NASA) affect all humanity, are ingrained and normalized in society, and help everyone in their daily lives,” Ruban said. “We want to be part of that change.”
Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts attended Frostbite’s presentation and pledged to deliver what schools need to succeed and what others need to participate. .
“Science, technology, engineering and math are here to stay,” Roberts said. “We know that critical thinking skills and teamwork improve when students participate in relevant classes. We want to make sure we invest and allocate resources to STEM projects.”
About the NASA App Development Challenge
According to ADC, the challenge begins in early October and teams have until Dec. 13 to complete their submissions via video submission.
Once a particular submission advances to the competition, teams will present their app in an interview with a NASA subject matter expert from NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation Program.
Once the interviews are complete, several teams will rise to the top and have a chance to visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas in April 2024.
It’s not just about winning, it’s about the journey
“What I’ve seen in this effort is a true pride of polar bears,” Nunez said. “…I couldn’t be more proud of these young scholars.”
Their journey is coming to a close, with the final deadline of December 13th looming, but Frostbyte is already making plans for next year, including an app, a broader reach, a bigger team, and more diversity. We are working.
Musica said, “I definitely want to do it again next year.” “We want to get more students involved, and we want to get more students involved from across DMPS.”
When it comes to their future plans, they are ready to take you anywhere. After all, they are bright young scholars ready to take on the world and the stars.
“As you can see, we are nerds,” Sujal said.
Kyle Warner is a reporter for the Register. Please contact kwerner@dmreg.com.