NASA MUREP AEROSPACE ACADEMY ENGAGING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ROBOTICS WITH GEOSCIENCE APPLICATIONS: YORK COLLEGE, QUEENS, NEW YORK CITY

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City - once the epicenter of the US - the STEM education project continued to march ahead by serving high school students coming from the hardest hit neighborhoods. Successful remote transition of the program from synchronous face-to-face in-class settings this spring and summer has allowed students to continue to operate under a “New Normality.” Students soon to be entering college took advantage of the NASA MAA virtual summer program and learned Python computer programming. It opened students’ curiosity to broaden their understanding of science and engineering. Python language helped students transition into C language, necessary to program Arduino microprocessors. Students built remote control cars from scratch, learned the different components, and eventually programmed their robots (purchased through a corporate grant from AT&T). The applications included the reconnaissance survey of areas with rough surfaces and mapping inaccessible terrains. Students, working both individually and group-based, demonstrated a great potential in the geosciences where unfamiliar and tortuous landscape are difficult to map in a shorter amount of time with utmost precision. Students received enhanced remote learning tools with the added feature of remote pick up robot parts in order to get familiar with the innovative mission of NASA education – inspire and engage in experiential learning. The applications of robotics exploration in geology does not end on earth and includes moons and planets of our solar system guided by field geologists. Programming and remote operation of robotics warrant systematic understanding of basic engineering design plan, geometry, and hands-on problem-solving skills. Access to real world terrain and characteristic topography are visualized and accounted for in the conditional statements of programming. With planetary and surface geology in mind, NASA MUREP scholars are presently equipped with the necessary engineering skills to share their summer research in STEM conferences.