Alexandria Students Launch Mock NASA Project by Building Mars Rover Simulation

Zebra • 4 hours ago

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Earlier this month, the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus K-12 Initiative hosted 36 students from four Alexandria schools (George Washington Middle School, Francis C. Hammond Middle School, Jefferson Houston PreK-8 IB School, and Patrick Henry K-8 School) to help NASA launch a mock Mars mission. For four days, the student astronauts and engineers worked alongside their classmates and 13 Virginia Tech engineering undergraduate and graduate students to build, program, and automate a robot that simulated a Mars rover.

Students were briefed on the mission, known as the Project Red Rover Robotics Program, by Dr. Ronald Gamble, a NASA Goddard theoretical astrophysicist. “This is a mission concept utilizing multiple vehicles and automated technology on the surface of Mars to collect and return soil samples without people traveling to the planet,” Gamble said. “Discoveries on Mars can give us important clues about the origin of and life on our planet.”

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At the closing ceremony, Dr. Lance Collins, the vice president and executive director of the college’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, congratulated participants for their completing the program successfully. He presented each with certificates and also expressed gratitude to all who made the project possible.