Spotlight on the 1996
SIGTel
Online Award Winners
Houston … We Have a
Problem
Craig Fox
Iris Clyne, Don Goetzinger, and David Palmer
Craig Fox
Redwood Intermediate School
233
Gainsborough
Rd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 USA
Iris Clyne
Konawaena Middle School
81-1041 Konawaena School Rd.
Kealakekua, HI 96750 USA
Don
Goetzinger
Conejo Valley High School
1872 Newbury Rd.
Newbury Park, CA 91320 USA
David Palmer
Holbrook Middle School
RR1 Box
22
E. Holden, ME 04429 USA
Students are engaged in a problem-solving scenario in which one
school
functions as Houston Mission Control and the other school simulates
operations
performed in an Apollo capsule. Partner schools compete with other
partner schools
by racing against each other; time and safely returning "home" are
the determining variables in this race. A maze, exactly duplicated at
each school
site, allows Mission Control to help school astronauts "work the
problem"
while astronauts at the school site use specific tools to perform each
operation.
Each tool may be used only once in the operation because a
contamination factor
is introduced into the problem. Using these tools, astronauts
manipulate a nuclear
fuel cell (raw egg) through a space capsule (an intricate maze).
Successful
manipulation of the cell will enable the partner schools to return
safely "home."
The team that returns home in the least amount of time is the top
competitor.
All communication between Mission Control and the Apollo capsule is
confined
to messages sent through computers and astronauts must agree with
Houston's
suggested sequence of instructions before each step in the process is
completed.
All telecommunications involve the use of NASA-like acronyms.
|
