Student Celebrations
Students qualify for Washington Aerospace Scholars 2012 summer residency
Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) announced that the following students from Seattle Public Schools were among 160 talented juniors from across the state who qualified for Phase 2 of the program – the WAS 2012 summer residency:
• Frank Wenn - Chief Sealth International High School - Session: July 15-20;
• Matthew Goss -Garfield High School - Session: July 15-20;
• Aidan Farr -Ingraham High School - Session: June 24-29;
• Benjamin Gardon -Ingraham High School - Session: July 15-20;
• Maggie Hargus -Ingraham High School - Session: June 24-29;
• Madeline Hubbard -Ingraham High School - Session: July 8-13;
• Akira Murphy -Ingraham High School - Session: July 15-20; and
• Sam Karcher -Ingraham High School - Session: July 15-20.
These talented and motivated students were among the 297 who began competing in December for a spot in one of the four Summer Residency sessions. They completed eight online lessons and a final project that was developed by NASA.
An invitation to participate in a summer residency was extended to the top scoring students based on their academic achievement on these lessons.
As their final project, students created a proposal for a future colony on Mars. They were challenged to design a colony capable of sustaining 30 colonists for an extended period of time and to create a visual design of their colony. Some of the top designs will be displayed at the Museum of Flight.
Phase 2 of the program is a six-day summer residency experience. In each of the residency sessions, four teams of scholars work cooperatively to plan a human mission to Mars with support from professional engineers/scientists, university students, and certificated educators.
Each session also includes briefings from aerospace professionals, tours of engineering facilities, and hands-on engineering challenges involving model rocketry, robotics, landing devices, and payload lofting.
The daily schedule is quite full, and the students lodge in double rooms at a local hotel under the supervision of certificated teachers. Room and board expenses are provided to participating students and teachers thanks to the WAS Foundation and many generous donors.