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More than 110 aspiring space scientists, engineers and designers participated in the fifth edition of the Nasa Space Apps challenge, aiming to bolster the country’s rapidly growing space sector.
The hackathon encourages students to build solutions using US National Aeronautical Space Agency (Nasa) data to address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and foster space science-inspired solutions in Bahrain and around the globe.
The event was held in partnership between the National Space Science Agency (NSSA), Bahrain Society of Engineers (BSE) and Bahrain Polytechnic.
“We are incredibly proud of the students that came together for this event – it has been a phenomenal success,” NSSA chief executive Dr Mohamed Ebrahim Al Aseeri told GulfWeekly.
“Having such an overwhelming response gives us confidence in the growth of space science as a field of interest in the kingdom and will help us sustain the space sector in the coming years.”
Twenty-two teams, each comprised of three to six individuals, participated this year, with some as young as 14 joining forces with diverse squads to tackle a variety of challenges set by Nasa.
The competition was open to middle and high school students as well as university pupils.
Every year, Nasa sets different goals, a process which helps students think holistically as they ideate around how to solve challenges faced by professional space scientists.
This year, 22 challenges were posed to students. ‘Exploring Venus Together’ asked teams to design a system that can power a surface lander or rover on Venus for at least 60 days, ‘Outfitting a Mars Habitat’ imagined landing on Mars with 3D printers as the only items available to sustain survival, ‘Build a Space Biology Superhero’ encouraged creative minds of all ages to address space exploration challenges including extreme gravity or disrupted sleep, to create a superhero that can thrive during space expeditions.
Meanwhile, ‘Learning through the Looking Glass’ called on scientists to design a game that exposes people to the James Webb Space Telescope and ‘Turning Stem into Steam’ encouraged creatives to explore ways of bringing the arts to the popular domain of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Out of the 22 teams, three received the following awards - the Best Use of Data, Best Use of Technology and Local Impact.
In addition, all teams were invited to submit their projects on the international Nasa Space Apps Challenge platform, where they will go up against 22,000 participants from around the world.
Team ‘The Apollos’ won the Best Use of Technology, Team ‘Orbitals’ won the Best Use of Data and Team ‘Smoke Screen’ won the Local Impact award.
