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HCTC Graduate, Senior Win International Space Settlement Design Competition
Pictured from left are Kaitlyn Tarr, a 20201 Boswell HS graduate, and Braiden Anders, a Saginaw HS senior.
Congratulations to Hollenstein Career and Technology Center aerospace engineering students Kaitlyn Tarr, a 2021 Boswell High School graduate, and Braiden Anders, Saginaw High School senior, for leading their team to win NASA’s 2021 International Space Settlement Design Competition at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this summer. Anders and Tarr are the first EMS ISD students to become international champions.
In April, EMS ISD students competed in the U.S. Championship held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Tarr and Anders were placed in the top 12, moving on to the international competition held July 29 - August 2, 2021. This is the seventh year HCTC has participated in this contest and has produced 23 national winners selected to attend the international contest.
The international competition included students from the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Argentina, Germany, Pakistan, Romania, China, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and India.
The annual US competition is open to all U.S. students in grades 10-12 and simulates working in an aerospace company. This year’s competition focused on designing the international space community’s actual goal of terraforming Mars. The high-pressure contest required students to form mock companies and design a single complex for 18,000 inhabitants. The design included internal-settlement transportation; power sources; water, food, and waste systems; computer and robotics systems; defining construction materials, sources and in-space construction methods; specifying interior living- and working-spaces; and developing project costs and schedules.
The experience requires students to integrate their knowledge and skills in aerospace engineering, physics, math, chemistry, environmental science, robotics, biology, computer science, writing, speaking, and design.
Congratulations, we are #EMSproud!