During the week of March 26-30th, Cyclone Space Mining (CSM) completed an outreach project called “Space Week” with Ocotillo Elementary School in Pheonix, Arizona. This project consisted of a week-long lesson plan involving coding, robotics, and STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math) activities.
The week began with an introductory video telling the students who CSM is and what they do. In the weeks leading up to this project, students at Ocotillio Elementry School came up with and sent questions to Iowa State University alumni and retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson. Clayton answered these questions in a video that was presented to the students during class. The former astronaut also signed four copies of his new children’s book, A is for Astronaut, which CSM sent to the school.
During the second activity, students learned about computer programming. This involved activities such as “Computer Says”, a computer version of Simon Says, that helped to solidify that computers need input in order to function properly. Towards the end of this lesson, the students learned the basics of Bee-Bots, which they would use for their mission to Mars.
CSM introduced the students to robotics during the third lesson. The students watched a video with interviews of Iowa State University professors talking about robotics. Then they learned about real-life applications of robotics, like the manufacturing robots at Quality Manufacturing Corporation in Urbandale, Iowa. After watching this video, the students were able to build and color their own paper robots.
The final mission was to send a Bee-Bot to Mars! After watching a trailer for the mission, the students drove their Bee-Bot to the rocket on the launchpad, and then explored Mars. The students followed six guiding cards that gave them the instructions for their mission. Once they had completed their mission on Mars, students planted their custom flag and received mission patches to celebrate their hard work.
See more photos of this event on our Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/art-e_lunabot/albums/72157692003051972
Watch the videos on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cyclonespacemining/
Cyclone Space Mining would like to thank Clayton Anderson, Quality Manufacturing Corporation in Urbandale, Jaeyoun Kim, and Soumik Sarkar for assisting us in making videos for this outreach project. CSM also would like to thank the students and faculty of Ocotillio Elementry School for making this project happen!