Students and teachers fascinated by drones, rover navigation, and space flight will likely be pleased to learn that the Office of Public Instruction (OPI) has received approval to conduct a national student competition that celebrates NASA’s 50th Anniversary of the lunar landing of Apollo 11, which will occur July 19, 2019. The competition will focus on middle and high school students, particularly in underserved and underrepresented communities.

OPI is looking for teachers to train in programming and to lead groups of middle and high schools students in a lunar landing mock-up competition using drones and Lego rovers. A statewide competition will be held at the Montana Learning Center in July 2019.

According to Michelle McCarthy, the Science Instructional Coordinator at OPI, an official announcement of the challenge will go out in mid-January 2019, and registration of teams will open February 1 and close March 30. She encourages Montana teachers to generate enthusiasm to form teams.

McCarthy outlined the project’s requirements in information sent to schools across the state. Once registered and accepted for support, teams must modify a drone so that it has an Apollo facsimile lander. Teams will undertake an instrument-only landing on a specified site while the drone pilot does not have direct viewing of the landing site. Points are awarded for the design of the lander, the time from launch to landing, and the distance of the drone landing site relative to the prescribed competition landing site.

Teams must also have a safety astronaut with a tether link to the drone to ensure the drone cannot fly away during any part of the competition and accidentally hurt anyone. The safety astronaut can provide information to the drone pilot but cannot actively assist in the landing.

Teams will also earn points for the originality of the astronaut’s costume, which can be a mock of an astronaut suit, a representation of national dress, or a school mascot costume. The main point of the costume is that it should be original.

From the landing site, a robotic system—such as a Lego robot—will simulate the exploration of the lunar surface by driving along a prescribed course. Again, using instrumentation only through feedback from the astronaut to the driver will be allowed. Points are given for time around the course, and points are deducted if the rover strays into forbidden regions, such as the craters around the landing site.

For teams of high school students, the rover should be able to plant a flag (either US, or mission patch) at the end of its travels. Such a feat would earn extra points for middle school teams.

The above outline of the competition seeks to provide an immersive opportunity for young people, including underrepresented minorities in important current day skills that will impact the next steps in education and career while increasing ties with space sciences and NASA.

“We hope that teams will get involved in what we hope will be an important opportunity for all,” McCarthy said.

Teachers interested in the competition are encouraged to create a student team to compete against other Montana teams on July 19, 2019 in Helena, Montana. For answers to questions, teachers can contact McCarthy by phone (406.444.3537) or email (MMcCarthy5@mt.gov) or obtain additional information from the OPI website (www.opi.mt.gov)