Young Engineers 'Rise to Challenges' at UI April 30 Part of Idaho Space Week April 25-May 1
Wednesday, April 21 2004
April 21, 2004^MOSCOW -- Simultaneous to University of Idaho's 2004 Engineering Design EXPO in the SUB, two other engineering contests involve elementary and high-school students from around the state. The public may attend for free.^Idaho TECH: Mars Rover Challenge attracts as many as 450 fifth- and sixth-graders, and countless parents, community members, high school mentors and teachers in the Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center and the Idaho Commons. Students race their own rovers built from Legos® over a simulated Mars terrain. Competition is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the awards are presented from 4-4:30 p.m. The state final competition comprised of the nine regional winners competing for state ranking is at 5-7 p.m. in the Idaho Commons. Hewlett-Packard will provide the overall first, second and third place winners with computers.^The Idaho Balloon RISE (Research Involving Student Engineers and Educators) Design Competition stages its final competition for the regional high school winners from 1-4 p.m. Friday, April 30, in the Kibbie Dome. The three teams have designed and built experiments to launch on a high-altitude balloon and recover their payloads using GPS and ham radio tracking equipment. This balloon launch is targeted for Saturday morning, May 1, from Washtucna, Wash., weather permitting.^The high-school RISE teams also will exhibit their projects in the SUB from 9-12 a.m. and a weather balloon will be partially inflated with helium to give visitors an idea of how the payloads are carried to near-space.^Each team developed a satellite capsule to launch to 100,000 feet above the Earth using a high-altitude balloon. The capsule is designed to take pictures and internal and external temperatures and air pressure using a HOBO data logger. Data also might be logged from a microgravity experiment.^Moscow High School team members are Colin Gordon and Adam Jordan; their sponsor is Pat Blount, MHS, and UI advisers are Cy Klein, Lars Bronson, Adam Lint and Byron Wong.^Boise High School team "Icarus" members are Jeff Eggebraaten, Tyler Jones and Emma Wetten; sponsor is Robert Bellomy, BHS; UI advisers are Nate Cropper, Ben Simmons and Sam Young. ^Garfield-Palouse High School team "Knunya" members are Travis Deerkop, David Smith and Jason Snook; sponsor is Jim Stewart, G-PHS; UI advisers are Viola Fucsko and Slade Klein.^Finally, Jaime Dyk and Chris Voorhees, two visiting members of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will talk about the building and electronics of the "real" rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which are currently on Mars. They will speak to the community at 3 p.m. in the Kibbie Dome.^All these events are sponsored by the NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium, a joint effort of UI's engineering and education colleges, other Idaho universities, science centers, museums and organizations to increase education and research in aerospace sciences and NASA-related fields.^Contact: April Christenson, NASA competitions coordinator, (208) 885-4934, aprilm@uidaho.edu; or Nancy Hilliard, University Communications, (208) 885-6567, hilliard@uidaho.edu^-30-^NH-4/21/04-NASA/ENGR^^
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