West Branch STEM students compete in Invent2Make Mars Rover Competition
Trending
BELOIT - Seventh-grade STEM students at West Branch Middle School competed in the Invent2Make Mars Rover Competition throughout this past school year. The top three teams from the January and April competitions moved on to the championship round Friday, May 12.
Invent2Make's Gaining Traction on Mars Project provided students with Mars Rovers kits to build and test their performance on a simulated Mars surface. They used these tests to design and optimize new wheels and gears for their Mars Rovers.
"This project explores Mars, its history, conditions, surface, and why Mars exploration is important," explained Angeline Theis, director of Instructional Programming. "Students study wheel design, ratios, and gears, and use this knowledge to evaluate velocity and torque impact on performance. With initial performance data, they design wheels and gears to optimize performance [of their Mars Rovers]."
This competition also allowed students to learn more about previous missions to Mars and NASA's current missions. The students even learned more about NASA's plans for sending humans to Mars in the future.
"As a district, we continue to develop and expand our STEM offerings because STEM fields are significant forces of innovation and development in our community, state, and nation," said Theis. West Branch Local School District prides itself on fostering curiosity and providing STEM educations to students beginning at a young age in fun, hands-on ways.
One team, in particular, Team Survivor, not only won the middle school division but competed so well that they were on par with first place in the high school division. Team Survivor's win scored West Branch Local School District's STEM program a 3D trophy printer to use for the next school year.