STEM / STEAM Blog

NASA HAB College Student Opportunity: Deadline Dec 2, 2022

Student teams from community colleges and universities are invited to develop experiments to fly to the edge of space on a NASA high-altitude research balloon. The annual project, supported by the NASA Balloon Program Office and the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium, provides near-space access for 12 student experiments. Q&A Teleconference on Nov 14, 2022Letter of…

NASA Student Launch Proposals Due Sept 19, 2022

Each year, NASA sponsors a year long, student launch challenge for colleges and middle / high school students. Students need to design, build and fly a high powered rocket that reaches an altitude between 4,000 and 6,000 feet. (This would be considered a Level 1 HPR using Tripoli or NAR classifications – well within the…

Application Window for NASA DEVELOP Program Opens Today (Aug 29) through Oct 7, 2022

DEVELOP conducts feasibility studies that bridge the gap between Earth science information and society. These projects help both participants and partners learn more about using geospatial information. Projects address priorities and concerns in nine thematic areas: Agriculture, Climate, Disasters, Ecological Forecasting, Energy, Health & Air Quality, Urban Development, Water Resources, and Wildfires. Three times a…

Check out the GLOBE Program

The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment. As an international science and education program, GLOBE is dedicated to supplying the STEM professionals of tomorrow with the scientific knowledge necessary…

Three Weekly Space / CubeSat / STEM Newsletters Worth Your Subscription

NASA STEM Express https://www.nasa.gov/stem NASA STEM express is the best way to keep up-to-date with the numerous STEM resources offered by NASA as well as challenges and funding opportunities through NASA and related organizations. Subscribe here: https://www.nasa.gov/stem/express The Orbital Index http://orbitalindex.com/ Orbital Index is a great way to keep track of upcoming and recent cubesat…

Space and CubeSat Lesson Plans from The Aerospace Corporation

The Aerospace Corporation, a non-profit, federally funded research and development center committed exclusively to space enterprise, has developed resources for teaching space in the classroom including slide packages, video, student worksheets and lesson plans on a variety of topics. To view and download, visit: https://aerospace.org/stem/teacher-resources Of special interest, is their CubeSat Mission Brief. In this…

Educational Passages — Build and Launch Your Own Ocean-going Probe

Educational Passages sells a 5-foot mini-sailboat kit loaded with sensors and a satellite transmitter. After building and launching the boat, students can track its progress (as well as that of other boats) on the organization’s webpage. Should your school not be near a coastal location, they will connect you with others who will launch your…

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) & National Weather Services (NWS) Educational Portals

NOAA, like NASA, offers a wealth of resources for STEM teachers. Their portal can be found at: https://www.noaa.gov/education Information on their weather satellites can be found at: https://www.noaa.gov/satellites The National Weather Service is part of NOAA, but maintains a separate educational portal at: https://www.weather.gov/education/ Information on their weather balloons can be found at multiple URLs,…

ARRL’s Intro to Radio / Learn to Solder Kit

The best way to learn to solder is to use a learn-to-solder project, typically a simple circuit board with 5 to 10 components, well spaced out. Many are blinking light badges. You can find them on Amazon. I’m partial to those offered by SparkFun. The ARRL has a learn-to-solder kit that is actually useful: a…

Presenting at Satellite Educators Association Conference July 29

The Satellite Educators Association (sated.org) are STEM teachers who use real-world satellite data in their classrooms. I’ll be presenting “Classroom Activities with the AMSAT Functional CubeSat Simulator” on July 29 at their 35th annual conference in LA and on Zoom. Registration ends July 22.

NV STEAM 2022 Videos Available

Videos of the Zoom sessions of the 2022 NV STEAM conference are now available. The annual conference is for Nevada STEM / STEAM K-12 teachers, but is relevant for all educators. This year’s focus was on Design Based Learning.

NASA TechRise Winners Announced

The NASA TechRise program challenged middle and high school students to design and build experiments for either a high altitude balloon or a suborbital rocket. Today the 57 winning teams were announced here: https://www.futureengineers.org/nasatechrise Note sometime in the future, clicking on the student’s project name will display a page displaying information regarding the project. So…

Reminder: Cubes in Space Proposals Due Feb 4, 2022

Cubes in Space is the only global STEM program for students 11-18 years of ageproviding suborbital and high altitude balloon flight opportunities on NASA missions. Homeschooled students, after-school, and out-of-school clubs are eligible. Students propose and create experiments that must fit into a 4cm cube. Free courseware to support the program is available.

Spaceport Academy – Free Online Learning for Space Exploration and Technologies

Spaceport.academy is a free online learning website focusing on space exploration and space technologies. Clicking the Mind Map link reveals how the lessons are organized by track: Space Science, Biology in Space, Space Applications, Robotics, and Engineering. The Engineering track contains numerous lessons relevant to cubesats. When you register, please consider joining the QMR-KWT Space…

AMSAT Virtual Space Symposium this Saturday Oct 30, 2021

AMSAT’s annual symposium will again be held virtual this year. Members can register on the AMSAT website’s member portal. Non-members can watch the presentation on their YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/RTvcceM7Tz0 Tentative Schedule 9:00am CDT – Opening Remarks9:15am CDT – 2:00 pm CDT – General Presentations2:00pm CDT – 3:00 pm CDT – AMSAT Education / CubeSat Simulator3:00pm…

Registration open for Caltech Space Challenge 2022 for undergrad and grad students

The Caltech Space Challenge brings 32 talented and highly-motivated students to the Caltech campus to participate in a week-long space mission design competition (March 21-25, 2022). The participants are split into two teams and both teams work under the mentorship of experts from industry, NASA and academia to design their mission concept from scratch to…

Grants available from the ARDC foundation

Amateur Radio Digital Communications is a private foundation with significant ability and desire to support Amateur Radio and digital communication science and technology. They are expected to award more than $6-million in 2021 grants to schools and 501(c)(3) organizations such as radio clubs. Grants have been made for things like educational programs, repeater equipment upgrades,…

Reminder: NASA Space Apps Challenge this weekend – Oct 2-3, 2021

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge (Space Apps) is an international hackathon for coders, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, technologists, and others in cities around the world, where teams engage the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) free and open data to address real-world problems on Earth and in space. Go to https://www.spaceappschallenge.org for details.

NASA Space Apps Challenge – Oct 2-3

10th annual NASA Space Apps Challenge Registration is open for the 10th annual NASA Space Apps Challenge. “NASA is inviting coders, entrepreneurs, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, artists, and technologists to come together in a global, virtualhackathon the weekend of October 2-3, 2021. During a period of 48 hours, participants from around the world will…

ScienceHeads.org HAB6 Balloon Flight

On Saturday, February 20, 2021, ScienceHeads (a STEM education group out of Lake Forest, CA, US) launched and successfully recovered their sixth high altitude balloon (HAB). It carried a flight recorder that I built, as well as several radios for tracking and seeds for student experiments. I was member of the recovery team chasing the…

Finalists in CTE: CubeSat Challenge Announced Today

“What impressed us most about the mission proposals was students’ enthusiasm to take on complex and ambitious projects — many of which focused on issues similar to what our national space missions are currently tackling.”—    Scott Stump, Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the U.S. Department of Education Scott Stump’s quote says it…

An Exciting Virtual Balloon Launch by ScienceHeads.org

While checking the status of my Palm Desert balloon tracking station on aprs.fi, I noticed the balloon KM6HCB-11 was traveling overhead. With the help of Google, I discovered it was launched by Science Heads, a Southern California STEM organization for middle and high school students. And I could participate remotely from La Jolla. Because of…

94 CTE Mission CubeSat proposals received

When submissions closed on October 16, CTE Mission: CubeSat had received 94 mission proposals from schools across the United States. The teams proposed a range of thought-provoking CubeSat projects, such as tracking changes to Earth’s magnetic field, assessing the environmental impact of pandemic lockdowns, and studying space debris. During two CTE webcasts, Robert Twiggs, co-inventor…

HobbySpace.com

Your webguide to space hobbies and activities. Its mission: “To prove to you that everyone can participate in space exploration and development in one way or another.” Don’t let the name fool you – it’s more than model rockets. This site is a wealth of information and projects at all levels. Check out HobbySpace.com.

Water Bottle Rockets

I never thought much about water bottle rockets until I viewed a YouTube video on their use in Shields Lab’s virtual summer camp. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Zqx5QCe5b41CcZeWL003g The camp uses Adafruit’s Circuit Playground Express for numerous coding projects and on day 5, the “launch” the CPEx as a flight recorder on a bottle rocket. Since many schools will…

New US Dept of Education Program

The US Department of Education announced a new education program that invites high school students to design and build CubeSat prototypes. Details can be found here: https://www.ctemissioncubesat.com/ A virtual information session was held on September 1, 2020. Zoom recording available on their website.

XinaBox – Modular Components

One of the sponsors of the CTE Mission CubeSat challenge is XinaBox.cc. They developed a unique system of arduino based components, sensors and radios for the STEM/STEAM market. The components “snap” together forming a rigid stable platform for experimentation. Their system is much faster to assemble than traditional breadboarding or even 4-wire systems such as…

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