NASA TechRise Student Challenge
Posted on September 28th, 2022 by Mary Lord
NASA’s TechRise Student Challenge invites U.S. students in grades 6 to 12 to submit ideas for experiments to be launched on high-altitude research balloons. Some 60 winning teams will receive $1,500 to build their experiments plus an assigned berth for their payloads on a NASA balloon flight.
Filed under: Competitions and Contests, K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features | Comments Off on NASA TechRise Student Challenge
Tags: Aerospace, atmostpheric research, Competitions for Students, Contest, Engineering Design, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, high-altitude balloon, Information in Spanish, NASA, NASA TechRise Student Challenge, Pollution, space exploration
In this NGSS-aligned activity, 2nd graders draw on their knowledge of Earth science to follow the engineering design process and investigate solutions for protecting sandcastles from wind and water damage. They make hypotheses, measure and record changes, and support their results using evidence. Suitable for students in grades 1-3.
Students in grades 3-5 brainstorm ideas for board game formats. They then work in teams to design, create, and test games in which players must think of alternative uses (recycling) for used products.
Whether it’s learning the engineering of sports, the basics or computer-aided design, or how storybooks can inspire kindergarten design projects, the American Society for Engineering Education’s P-12 Commission has an online summer engineering camp to match the interests of K-12 students. Taught by engineering faculty and graduate students! Sign up 
Like NASA engineering teams, students learn about and then follow the steps of the engineering design process to design and build original model devices to help astronauts eat in a microgravity environment—their own creative devices for food storage and meal preparation. 
Built for engineering and science discovery, the International Space Station’s cupola also delivers awe and inspiration. Get a glimpse of the engineering behind this iconic addition to the ISS along with classroom activities and resource links as we celebrate 20 years of human habitation in space.
To support parents everywhere and provide access to hands-on STEM activities, the American Society for Engineering Education’s P-12 Commission is offering online summer camps for students in grades K-8. Check out these and other virtual summer STEM programs!
Blind or visually impaired toddlers risk tripping over objects they can’t see and as a result tend to be overly cautious walkers. To help them learn to walk safely and more quickly, researchers at the City University of New York have invented a “toddler cane.” 
It began with a conundrum: How to accommodate a blind mechanical engineering major who needed to take a required engineering graphics course but couldn’t access its computer-assisted design system. Steven Zemke, a professor of engineering and physics at Whitworth University, figured out a way to teach fundamental visualization and drawing skills using assistive technologies such as braille pads – and small, 3-D-printed plastic parts that could felt and then sketched on special “swell paper” to show the raised lines like the example pictured here.
