Following a NASA curriculum, elementary and middle school students will use common household items to design and build a model rover to carry out a science mission on the surface of Mars during the 2017 Mars Rover Celebration at the University of Houston. The students will be given design criteria and be required to do basic research on Mars that will determine the operational objectives and structural features.
About the event:
- A $25 limit on supplies helps students learn about budgets and project management.
- Members of several UH student organizations that focus on STEM fields will help judge the competition, offer robotics and coding demonstrations and give tours of the engineering building.
- This is the first year the UH STEM Center is hosting the event along with longtime sponsor, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
- UH physics professor Edgar Bering launched the annual competition in 2002.
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WHAT: |
15th Annual Mars Rover Model Celebration and Competition |
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WHO: |
Area elementary and middle school students |
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WHEN: |
9 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday, January 28 Best Visuals: 10-11:30 a.m. – Elementary School teams 1-2:30 p.m. – Middle School teams |
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WHERE: |
University of Houston Houston Room of the Student Center South, Room 220 Off Calhoun Road, Entrance 1 Map: http://www.uh.edu/wtsc_apps/uh_maps/
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Heather N. Domjan, Interim Executive Director, UH STEM Center:
“Hosting the 2017 Mars Rover event gives students from the Houston and surrounding communities the opportunity to communicate their findings through the building of a rover and collaboration of teamwork ethics that resonates with 21st Century skills needed in the workforce. As NASA looks to send humans to Mars in the 2030’s our students could help make that a reality.”
The UH STEM Center’s goal is to meet local, state, and national goals that inspire, attract, and retain more students into STEM careers.