Seven students from J. W. Dodd Middle School, Zachary George, Johnn Hernandez, Nayibeth Matos, Ronaldo Pena, Kaiden Reid, Torri Simpson and Sabrina Turcios, were recognized by NASA for taking part in their App Development Challenge.
“We are extremely proud of these students for taking on a challenge of this magnitude,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kishore Kuncham said. “They certainly put their knowledge and research skills to the test as they developed a solution to assist NASA with future space missions.”
The ADC, one of eight Artemis Student Challenges, provided students with a unique research opportunity in which NASA presented students with technical problems, seeking their contributions to deep space exploration missions.
In 2024-2025, NASA will be sending four astronauts to the south pole of the moon for the Artemis Mission. The astronauts will be living there for an entire month. For the competition, students were given terrain data of the south pole of the moon and were challenged to design an optimum path for the astronauts to travel from their spacecraft to their final destination site.
The teams of middle school students worked with J.W. Dodd Middle School science teacher Peter Capaccio and Director of Science Dr. Vincent Pereira over 10 weeks to build their app. With the data provided, the app visualized terrain data of the south pole region of the moon and displayed essential information for the astronauts to navigate and communicate while on their mission. The students then created a video showcasing the app’s ability, which was submitted to NASA for the challenge. Their code will now be used to take part in several science competitions.
By participating in this program, these Artemis Generation students from J.W. Dodd Middle School are part of NASA’s endeavors to land American astronauts, including the first woman and first person of color, on the moon.