DON’T PANIC: STUDENTS HAVE UNTIL
DEC. 7 TO ENTER UH MARS ROVER CELEBRATION
Model Design Competition Challenges Future Scientists, Engineers
HOUSTON, Nov. 22, 2006 – In the 1938 radio broadcast of
“War of the Worlds,” listeners went into panic at the
prospect of Martians invading Earth. It’s hoped that cooler
heads will prevail when Houston-area grade schoolers descend upon
the University of Houston for the 2006-2007 Mars Rover Celebration.
The deadline for entries has been extended to Thursday, Dec. 7.
A looming deadline and the Red Planet’s forbidding landscape
aren’t the only challenges students in grades three through
eight must face. While these future scientists and engineers are
expected to create operational vehicles that can carry out a specific
scientific mission on the surface of Mars, they must restrict themselves
to found objects and minimal art supplies costing no more than $25
– a budget that would make any NASA administrator quake.
The annual competition takes place from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday,
Jan. 27, 2007, when the top three teams of students from 30 schools
citywide will be given the chance to show off their models in the
Houston Room of UH’s University Center. The event is open
to the public.
Students were supplied with design criteria and had to complete
basic research on Mars to accurately determine feasible operational
and structural features for their rovers. In a previous three-hour
workshop held at UH, teachers were trained to guide their students
in building the models during six-week classroom-learning and homework
projects about Mars.
This year, there also will be a UH Mars Rover booth for both students
and teachers to get their questions answered Dec. 4-6 at the George
R. Brown Convention Center in Exploration Alley, the outreach area
at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronauts (AIAA) Second
Space Exploration Conference. The AIAA convention will address how
to make visions for space exploration a long-term reality by meeting
the challenges and addressing the decisions now needed in order
to help define the United States’ space programs for decades
to come.
For a UH Mars Rover Celebration entry form, visit http://marsrover.phys.uh.edu
or contact Edgar Bering, UH professor of physics and electrical
and computer engineering, at eabering@uh.edu
or 713-743-3543.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students.
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For more information about UH visit the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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