Forks teams compete in Apollo 11 50th-anniversary challenge at the UW

Saturday, July 20 marked 50 years since two U.S. astronauts walked on the moon. At the University of Washington, the NASA-sponsored Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline marked the occasion with a statewide robotics challenge for middle and high school students, the Apollo 50 Next GiantLeap Student Challenge.

The “W.O.W. (Women of the World)” team was one of two Forks teams that participated in the July 19 event. The W.O.W. team was also profiled on the Seattle TV news station King5.

The five-member teams of 5th through 12th-grade students hailed from Forks to Walla Walla, and from Bellingham to Olympia. The day’s activities also include a STEM career panel and lab tours.

Each team programmed a drone to land on a high-resolution map of the moon’s surface, and a Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot to explore the surface and retrieve rock samples. The goal was to broaden the pipeline for aeronautics careers and prepare the next generation of scientists for the “next giant leap.”

While the Forks Teams did not win the challenge it was a great experience!