The NASA App Development Team at Hayes is reaching for the stars this year.
Team niRbii (no ideas are bad ideas) members Elise Buckerfield, Madeline Bruns, Nat Zahniser, Jason White and Isaac Highman are nearing the end of a ten week time crunch to build an app that visualizes the flight of the future moon mission, Artemis II. In order to accurately map the path, they must take into consideration the availability of satellites and SCaN antennas, as well as other limiting factors that come with space travel.
Like most group work, each member works on a different part of the project. For example, one student codes display buttons, while another scripts the decision making “brain” of the app. Now, they are working on putting it all together.
“You’re so much more valuable if you can work with other people,” Bruns said. “Learning how to collaborate with different people is something that’s gonna be super useful in the future.”
Team niRbii will submit their project on Dec. 11 in order to have a chance of being selected as a finalist in January and then the possibility of being chosen as a Top Team in February. Teams that are selected will get to visit the NASA base in Houston this April. In the three years this program has existed at Hayes, one group has been chosen as a Top Team before.
One thing that is different this year is that the team uses a class period to meet together. The team also meets on Sundays for three hours.
“Actually communicating with each other […] is really helpful, just getting to talk in person,” Zahniser said.
Joanne Meyers, the Computer Science teacher at Hayes and Team Leader of the project, plays a developmental role in niRbii.
“I give them encouragement, keep them on task, help them find resources, and meet deadlines,” Meyers said.
Students are encouraged to have taken a computer science or coding course in order to join the team at Hayes. Most of the project is student motivated and they should have an understanding of code in order to succeed in the time they are given.
“Part of [the appeal] is the challenge,” White said. “I love solving things that I don’t know how to do and when I figure it out, I get that dopamine rush. Problem solving can be so gratifying.”
Apart from the emotional fulfillment that comes with coding, this project gives the team a glimpse into their future as working adults.
“The vast majority of industries are becoming digitized,” Zahniser said. “If you’re working almost anywhere, you’re going to need computer intervention, like data and coding in some shape or form.”
On the daily, the students use a platform called Unity and the scripting language C# to code their app, which is different from the Javascript code they are taught in Computer Science.
“Our future is moving towards data,” Bruns said. “[It is important to] learn how to take that data, sort it, make it meaningful, and be able to display it in some way.”
The skills they learn in the project can be translated to many different environments and experiences, which is useful because most of the group members are upperclassmen. Accordingly, the team’s futures are moving closer just like the project deadline.
“I wanted to go into engineering, but after this, I don’t think I could stop coding,” White said. “I want to minor in computer science now, just because I enjoy it so much. It’s just the fact that […] if I want to do something, there’s a way to code it.”
Even though this program has existed for a relatively short time, the team is thriving. Their dedication has contributed to their success as a group.
“The computer science program here at Hayes is so important,” Meyers said. “[We must] keep building the program because it’s getting to [a point where] everything is a code, you’re just expected to know how it works.”