BROADER IMPACTS

Team Synergy Moon and Spaceport Academy Engage the Pharaohs

Join the Moon Mission Challenge!

We invite you to be involved in an exciting opportunity for middle and high school students to design a payload based on an actual Moon mission! Innovate Our World (IOW), an educational nonprofit, is conducting the Moon Mission Challenge (MMC), where student teams will work with Google Lunar X Prize team Synergy Moon (and a few other GLXP teams) to design a payload based their lunar robotic rover missions. Teams learn about the Moon, what it takes to operate on its surface, and fundamentals of systems and payload engineering and create a payload concept which they will present at a Capstone event on April 27, 2014 in Washington, DC at the USA Science and Engineering Festival. The teams with the best concepts, as judged by panelists from NASA, industry, space organizations, and academia, will win prizes and get experience working on the cutting edge of science and technology. Students will participate in MMC through a new and exciting virtual environment, the Cyber STEM Academy. Their avatars will visit the MMC pod and engage in fun and useful content, to get themselves ready for payload design.

HOW TO REGISTER. Registration at www.innovateourworld.org will begin in November 2013. There is no cost to enter and participate!

WHO WILL LEAD THE TEAM? Each school should choose at least one teacher or trusted outside adult to lead, who will become the main point of contact. One-day in-person or online training is offered free of charge to team leaders. Email info@innovateourworld.org to receive updates on training opportunities.

HOW MANY STUDENTS DO I NEED? A good team size estimate is between 4 and 8, although smaller or larger teams are acceptable. Although most students will probably be technically or scientifically oriented, some students should be strong in art, design, marketing, and business. A portion of judging will involve a non-STEM component.

WHAT ARE THE RULES? As part of signing up for the Challenge, team leaders will need to review the Challenge rules which will be available on the IOW website starting October 31, 2013. All submission deadlines are to be followed to enable teams to advance to the finals.

HOW DO I GET RESOURCES? Innovate Our World supplies lesson plans, presentations, videos, and related material in the Cyber STEM Academy. We also provide recent lunar news on our website (www.innovateourworld.org) that can be used at the start of classes to engage students.

MORE QUESTIONS? The IOW Challenge Support Team is accessible via email at info@innovateourworld.org. Please put "MMC Support" as part of your email subject line. Our intention is to reply to your question within 48 hours, if not sooner. If the question needs to be answered by one of our mission technical partners, the response may take up to one week.