Iowa middle schoolers win big in NASA TechRise Challenge

Kyle Werner, Des Moines Register
·4 min read

A team of six students from Adel DeSoto Minburn Middle School are one of 60 winners of NASA's TechRise Student Challenge, and the only winners from Iowa.

"It's kind of a testament to their motivation to learn more," Jon Markus, a science teacher at ADM Middle School, said about the students who won.

Now in its third year, TechRise calls on middle and high school students from across the country to submit experiment ideas for either a high-altitude balloon or rocket-powered lander test flight.

Announced on Tuesday, Jan. 23, the ADM students' experiment, "Volatile Organic Compound and Ozone Detection," was one of 30 experiments that were recognized as high-altitude balloon winners.

According to the TechRise website, the challenge offers the opportunity to get hands-on insight into the design and flight test process. The goal is to inspire a deeper understanding of space exploration, Earth observation, coding, electronics, and the value of test data in students.

“NASA’s TechRise Student Challenge is one of the many exciting ways we’re engaging with the Artemis Generation,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a news release. “The process of designing flight experiment proposals encourages students to think big and realize that their talents and creativity will be key in the future of humanity’s exploration.”

These six ADM students get to take part in this process, but it is only the beginning and still on the ground.

Here's what a couple of ADM middle schoolers brought to the table, soon to be in the air

Since school started back up last fall, the team of six ADM middle schoolers – Lukas Crannell, Arthur Chaplin, Lucas Seifer, Nile Hall, Finn Ryan and Drew Bjork – had been working on their piece of the competition.

"Our actual experiment is about the volatile organic composites in the air," said Bjork, 13. "It's all about ozone and how ozone is not really good for the human body to take in."

The balloon project they came up with will go into the ozone layer and test exactly how different it is from where we live on the ground.

"We mainly did ozone because ozone is very dangerous at ground level," said Chaplin, 12. "But, it's also needed at higher levels, which makes it interesting."

Being a winning team, the ADM middle schoolers will get:

  • $1,500 to build their experiment.

  • A flight box in which to build their experiment.

  • An assigned spot to test their experiment on a NASA-sponsored flight.

  • Technical support during the experiment build phase from Future Engineers advisors, who will help students learn the skills they need to turn their experiment idea into reality.

Even though they have been selected as one of the 60 winners across the country, according to Bjork, they're only about a third of the way done with their project.

"We've put a bunch of effort into our application that we sent in, and the work is yet to come with building, coding and soldering everything together," Bjork said.

The next steps include building the high-altitude balloon with the help of NASA TechRise engineers.

"Weekly meetings will occur with these NASA TechRise engineers," Markus said. "They're going to learn how to wire and solder a breadboard onto an Arduino, or a Raspberry Pi."

But the most exciting part for these six students is when they will perform final tests and finally get their balloon off the ground.

"I'm really excited that we run it through a bunch of on-ground testing to see if it works," Bjork said. "I'm feeling that we're gonna be real happy if it does."

The building of their project has just started, and a winners showcase will be coming up on May 16. The launch of their experiment will be this summer in South Dakota.

What is Future Engineers?

Founded in 2014, Future Engineers is a platform to connect innovation with youth by administering online challenges for K-12 students outside of the classroom. Some of these challenges are sponsored and conducted by organizations like NASA and the ASME Foundation.

Future Engineers launched its first challenge ‒ the 3D printing in space challenge – in 2014 when it was founded. It was sponsored by the ASME Foundation with technical assistance from NASA, which produced historic achievements including the first student-designed 3D print in space.

Through the support of the U.S. Department of Education's SBIR Program, Future Engineers launched a multi-challenge platform in 2018 capable of hosting STEAM challenges of all kinds. All challenges are free for student/classroom participation.

Since its conception, Future Engineers has made a name for itself with contests like the "Name the Mars 2020 Rover" and the "Artemis Moon Pod Essay Contest," according to the Institute of Education Sciences.

Now, Future Engineers sponsors competitions like the TechRise Student Challenge and more. You can see what other challenges they have to offer on their website.

Kyle Werner is a reporter for the Register. Reach him at kwerner@dmreg.com

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: ADM Middle School students win NASA TechRise Challenge