How long does it take smart high school students to create a light bulb over their heads?
Three days, or “a weekend and a day,” according to Aryan Mansingh, a sophomore student at the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora.
At least, that’s how long Mansingh and four fellow students – Abhinav Anne, Atman Shelar, Dhivija Challa and Samantha Narchetty – had to create their winning idea for the TechRise Student Challenge, a national STEM competition sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.
The five students, all from the Naperville or Aurora area in their first years at IMSA, had to scrap their first idea, and came up with their second and winning idea, not to mention actually working on it, over those three days.
The result was being one of 60 teams from schools across the country selected to be part of TechRise, now in its third year as a STEM challenge for sixth- through 12th-graders.
NASA sponsors the event to offer students the opportunity to design and test their own innovative solutions for space exploration and the study of Earth.
They also get a chance to get hands-on insight into the payload design and flight test process. The hope, according to NASA, is that it inspires a deeper understanding of space exploration, Earth observation, coding, electronics and the value of test data.
“We have access to actual NASA engineers,” Shelar said. “We get to learn a bunch of skills from them.”
This year’s challenge was to design a science or technology experiment that could be tested on either a NASA-sponsored high-altitude balloon flight or rocket-powered lander. So, 30 of the experiments chosen were for the rocket-powered lander, and 30 were for the high-altitude balloon flight.
The IMSA experiment will be on the balloon flight, officially titled A Pilot Study: Exploring Atmospheric Levels of Air Pollutants Using Air Quality Sensors Across Altitude Gradients.
The students will work through the rest of the school year building their experiments with the support of professional engineers, in preparation for a flight test this summer. The experiment’s goal is to have an understanding of how pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide affect our atmosphere at different altitudes.
“At each altitude, we’re searching for pollutants, and where they end up in our atmosphere,” Nechetty said.
The students will be on a 17-week schedule, with benchmarks to show where they should be during each week.
There is no end winner; all 60 experiments will get a chance.
“Just getting our project in the air is the prize,” said Mansingh.
Across the country, the winning teams include more than 490 students representing 46 states and territories.
“Cultivating creativity and curiosity and inspiring students to pursue STEM careers is one of NASA’s most important missions,” said Prasun Desai, deputy associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “TechRise is a unique opportunity that allows students to gain hands-on knowledge while developing real payloads for flight, and it’s an experience they can carry with them during their educational and early career journeys.”
The project also meets the goals of the Illinois Math and Science Academy, according to Scott Campbell, the IMSA teacher who is the faculty adviser for the students.
“IMSA’s mission is to allow students the opportunity to impact” the world around them, Campbell said. “They will get to use data from NASA for future research.”
Each team gets $1,500 to build their experiments, a flight box to house it, technical support from Future Engineers, and an assigned spot for their experiments on a suborbital flight test.
Experiments tested on the high-altitude balloon will experience approximately four hours of flight time at approximately 70,000 feet with exposure to Earth’s upper atmosphere, high-altitude radiation and perspective views of Earth.
A group of some 200 volunteer judges with expertise in engineering, space and Earth science reviewed entries and selected the nationwide winners. Judges evaluated proposals based on experiment originality, its impact on education or society, feasibility within the allotted time frame and budget, and the quality of the build plan.
All five students in the IMSA experiment are interested in engineering and aerospace.
“We have a lot of opportunities here,” said Challa.
Anne said she hopes the work they do will have an impact on future research in the climate field.
“A pathway to future studies,” she said.
slord@tribpub.com