>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 2003 when NASA launched what was supposed to be a small scale project they were calling.

HUNCH.

HUNCH standing for high school students united with NASA to create hardware.

The first HUNCH was based in the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and a second in the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

But something about working with NASA appeals to high school students across the country.

And so the program grew.

Students are invited to design and manufacture hardware and soft goods and even prototypes for the International Space Station or future exploration.

HUNCH has grown to more than 500 high school programs in 34 states.

Students have helped create more than 4000 items that have been sent to the International Space Station.

NASA is getting a lot out of these partnerships, and this hour we're joined by three couple, I should say, local high school students who recently returned from Houston, where they met with NASA astronauts and doing some work there.

We've got Sloane Keller and Luke Schulte who are students at Fairport High School, participated in the NASA HUNCH program.

We're going to talk with them and their mentors about their work on a lunar sample sample container.

Their trip to Texas, meeting some astronauts and more.

And let me welcome our guests.

First, in studio, we do have Luke and Sloane.

Sloane Keller is a sophomore at Fairport High School and a participant in NASA.

HUNCH.

Welcome.

Thanks for being here.

>> Hi.

Thanks for having us.

>> Luke Schulte, a junior at Fairport and a participant as well.

Nice to see you.

>> Yeah.

Thanks for having us.

>> And welcome to Donna Himmelberg, a chemistry teacher in NASA.

Advisor at Fairport High School.

Thanks for being Evan.

>> It's great to be here.

>> A very proud teacher.

>> Absolutely.

>> And welcome on the line to Florence Gold, project manager for NASA HUNCH Academy.

Hello, Florence.

>> Hello.

Thank you so much for having me and for talking about NASA HUNCH.

>> It's great to have you.

Great to have Gene Gordon, a former NASA HUNCH mentor and a retired Fairport Central School District teacher.

Hello, Jean.

>> How's it going?

I I'm very excited to be here.

>> It's going great.

And you know, this is this should be a really fun hour because a lot of people have their eyes on what NASA just did with their April mission with Artemis and going around the moon.

And, you know, anytime you've got a mission like that, or even in recent years, you know what we saw with the images coming back from Pluto, it really gets I was going to say students, it gets Americans fired up about what is what is even possible.

And Donna Himmelberg, you're a chemistry teacher, you're a NASA advisor.

How in the world do you even have this?

Like, how did this partnership come about in the first place here?

>> That's a great place to to start.

Evan and I wouldn't be here without my colleagues, Jean and Flo.

So I'm so happy they can join us today.

So 2010, we're looking at 16 years ago, Jean put out a, um, a request, uh, put a bug in our ear.

Me and two other of our colleagues at Fairport High School and said, you know, there's this grant where we could take some students work to Houston and they're going to let us fly on a zero gravity plane and test out an experiment.

And he goes, let's apply.

And we were like, no, this is never going to happen.

Like, that's crazy.

And we applied and we got it.

So we're running through the halls of Fairport High School, just like the kids are so excited.

And that started a beautiful partnership.

So over the years, we started with a club where we would work on projects.

And in the beginning NASA was funding flights on a zero g plane.

So we got to fly.

Jean and I did.

We took some students to fly in the early days, so that was in the early teens, right?

2010 to about 2015.

And we realized from the amount of work that students were putting in that this we started out as a club.

We had 30 kids, 40 kids after school who were interested in working with us.

And this is fantastic, but we couldn't get the work done.

So we did some writing and some research, and we appealed to the Board of Education, who were all in and enthusiastic and supporting us, created a class, which is what we have today.

Um, we unfortunately don't have the opportunity to fly on a zero g flight, but we can do other things.

And so each year we have the opportunity to work on projects that engineers and astronauts are interested in.

Having these young minds find answers to.

>> They brought something with them.

And in a moment, we're going to ask the students to tell us about this.

What is that thing called Sloane?

>> We call it our just our container, our lunar sample container.

>> And what's the purpose of it?

>> Luke So the purpose is to bring back samples from the moon in a manner where the samples are accurate when they go to test them.

>> Let me tell you about something about when I was a junior.

Luke.

>> All right.

>> I was in a physics class and all I had to do was be in an egg drop competition.

I wasn't creating a container that could bring lunar samples back.

I wasn't doing that.

NASA would be like, yeah, like we can actually do that.

I had to just make something where an egg wouldn't break if you dropped it off a table.

And dude, this was like inventing.

>> Sliced bread.

>> Something that had it was not going to happen.

And I was given by Mr.

Pacas a courtesy B minus.

>> Nice.

>> Like a good effort.

This is not for you.

So I mean, like, I can't wait to talk about this, but I mean, honestly, Miss Himmelberg, this is the real deal.

This I mean, like they're actually making.

Actually usable.

>> Material in the, in the early years, a couple of the projects we worked on, people don't realize that aboard the I s it's, it's actually a pretty stinky, smelly place.

>> International Space Station, when you hear I s yep.

>> Sorry.

Yep.

That's NASA speak, right?

>> Yes, exactly.

>> Um, there's a lot of bacterial and fungal growth.

So one of the early projects we worked on was a way to kill bacteria and fungus to make astronauts job easier and cleaning like they got a clean house, just like we do.

Um, and so how could we help with that?

We had students working on that.

It was a UV wand to help kill bacteria.

We on a less, uh, technologically sophisticated way, but still super, uh, thought provoking and difficult slippers.

>> Slippers.

>> In microgravity.

You're not walking, but you're using your feet as well as your hands to get around on the I s so the tops, not the bottoms of astronauts feet would get dinged up bruised because there's not the padding on the top.

And so one year the project was, how can we design footwear that can easily go on and off, but that will still allow astronauts to use their feet to manipulate around the ES and not get bruised.

So we worked on a project that had components that were eventually made into slippers that NASA uses.

>> I love this, can I ask Florence Gold, project manager for NASA HUNCH Academy, can you describe a little bit about what NASA HUNCH gets out of these programs and these schools across the country?

>> Yeah, for sure.

And those are really out of the box creative ideas.

So, you know, we have a bunch of NASA engineers and, and private businesses working on, let's say the lunar, um, sample container box.

But our students think differently.

They haven't been trained as engineers yet, but they have different experiences, different viewpoints, different ideas.

And those are what are real value to NASA.

And we actually use a lot of as, as, as demonstrated and talked about.

We use a lot of their projects.

I remember the slippers going up to the I, S s and, um, and it really did help the astronauts so that when they put their feet under the handrails to hold them in place, they, their, their top of their feet did not get sore.

So this is a, a really creative way.

But the other thing that we get besides wonderful products from the students, um, are inspiring the students.

And even one step more, um, developing workforce, they, we don't give them any breaks.

They have to do exactly as the NASA engineers would have to do.

They have requirements.

They have preliminary, critical and final reviews, just like our, um, our NASA engineers do.

And they have to meet the deadlines.

And so we are doing, um, a really good job of workforce development since we give them the same task.

>> Well, and Gene, you got a chance to, I think, work with the students over the years.

Donnie, you were saying, um, so you want to introduce Gene for a little bit of background here?

>> Sure.

Gene taught physics at Fairport High School for before I was there.

And we developed this partnership and honestly working together on NASA really cemented not only us as colleagues, but as dear friends.

And so he retired a number of years ago, and he passed the class on to me and another colleague, Vince Stornello, who's not here today.

Um, but between the two of us, we helped guide these students.

So Gene and I go way back.

But he was a physics teacher, and he's also a NASA fellow, which I am sure that he'll talk to you more about.

>> And, you know, Gene, for, for anybody who's cynical about students these days or kids these days, you really probably seen the best of kids these days for a long time, haven't you?

>> It's that has been what my career has been about.

Um, watching kids be allowed to be an adult and think and, and grow and be allowed to be free and, and do what they want with their love and their passion.

Kind of like what I did.

My, my life, my life has been a, my passion has been teaching science and not always in the way people want to be taught.

I tend to give people a lot of rope.

Well.

>> Tell me more about that.

Tell me more about that.

>> Um, I'm an inquiry based teacher.

I'm project based and I would say, here's a bunch of stuff and throw it on the table and say, figure this.

>> Out.

>> And students, a lot of times in the beginning of the year would stare at me like, what are you talking about?

Like you have, you have until Friday to figure this out and build something to do.

X and only when they came to me with specific questions would I start giving them information.

Otherwise they had to learn from failure.

And to me and Donna, Donna still has this in the classroom.

Um, a, a way to, um, a way I view life and education is an old quote from NASA that, you know, it was like, failure is not an option.

But in my classroom, there was a poster across the entire front of it that said, failure is not an it's not only an option, it's a requirement because we don't learn from success.

We learn from failure.

>> I love.

>> It, man.

Um, and so that's been my way of teaching my entire life.

>> That's so good.

So all right.

Luke and Sloane.

So Luke, how did you get involved with this?

First of all?

>> So going back to last year, my sophomore year, I had a teacher named Mr.

Wallace and bio, and one day I don't remember what the question was, but I asked him a question and he kind of paused and looked at me and he said, you know, Luke, I think you'd be really great at this NASA class that we offer here at this high school.

You should totally take it next year.

And I said, oh, really?

And he was like, yeah, totally take it.

And then from there, that's how I got involved there.

So I owe a lot of my credit to him for doing that and telling me to take it.

>> Sloane how'd you get involved?

>> So it was around, um, I think December of last year, and I was looking through the course requirements and the course descriptions for the next year, because that's when we start planning our schedules.

And I saw a class that said NASA space research.

And that just struck me because in what other kind of classes are going to take that sound like that intriguing and that amazing.

And the course description was discussing how you work with groups and you engineer and you learn, and it just sounded like nothing I'd ever heard of before.

And I thought that was very unique.

And I really wanted to give it a try because I've always loved space.

I've always loved learning about NASA and that kind of things, and it felt unreal to me that I could take it as a class and actually get credit for something that felt more like a passion than an actual requirement, you know?

>> Okay.

And so, um, I should ask Donna and Gene so the students get involved, but how do they get to the point where they are creating slippers or the, the moon bucket?

Um, that we're going to talk about, I mean, like, how do they get to the point?

Where do they have to propose it?

Does it have to be accepted?

Like, how does that happen?

>> So as Sloane and Luke have said, they, you know, we get a new crop of budding engineers every year, right?

NASA provides us a list of 10 to 12 projects for the year.

Um, we're part of you mentioned in your introduction so generously.

There are different divisions of HUNCH.

We're the design and prototype.

Um, and so we, we get a list of 10 to 12 projects that students may select.

So at the beginning of the year, in the first couple of weeks, we give them that list.

They do some reading.

We, we get to know them.

We end up grouping them.

They pick, they pick a project that they want to spend a year on, which is a big deal because when you're a sophomore or junior in high school, you probably haven't spent a year long doing anything right.

We break up our academic year in a much smaller chunks.

Smaller projects, so they have to understand they're going to commit to it, but they get a group together.

And, um, you know, they, they not so much pitch us, but convince us that we're the group to tackle this project.

And then they set to work.

And, and NASA has, as Flo mentioned, they have deadlines and benchmarks.

We have to meet.

So in the fall, so late October, November, they have their first review.

Uh, and they have a, like a literature review.

Have they, have you done some reading?

Do you have some background knowledge?

What's your proposal?

What do you think?

Which direction do you think you want to take this prototype, this project and answer to the problem that you're trying to solve.

And then they design something.

They get some feedback from NASA engineers and from and mentors, and then they work on that through the winter.

And then February, we have a critical design review.

And at that point in February, we've been graciously hosted by RIT for the past few years, where we meet with other schools, other there's other schools in the in the New York state, a couple from Canada.

We've even had a couple teams from Minnesota this year come to RIT.

We have our NASA mentors come and it's a giant poster session.

How are you doing at this point with your project?

So they pitch their project.

This is what we've got so far.

This is what's working.

This is what we want to do next.

And then from there, NASA makes a very tough decision.

They say, okay, you have made adequate progress.

We want to see what you do next.

We want you to come to Houston.

And so the Houston trip.

>> It's not guaranteed that you're going to Houston.

>> Oh, no.

>> Sir, no.

>> Okay.

>> What's what's the what's the number of, um, groups that get chosen out of all the groups?

>> I wonder Florence knows that.

Do you know the answer to that?

Florence.

>> So if we have about, um, 8 to 10 projects and five, uh, teams on each of those projects get selected, only five out of the nation.

>> And you're in, I mean, I, I, the latest on the NASA website for HUNCH is 34 states, but I mean, five out of how many roughly could are kind of competing.

>> Um, there probably is 300.

>> Oh my goodness gracious.

>> Um, no, that, that is remarkable.

And I'm going back to what Jean said.

So Jean, you know, we've talked to PhD candidates.

We actually have a really fun ongoing series.

We do, um, kind of headed up by astrophysicist Adam Frank, where we sit down with Adam and we sit down with PhD candidates and they talk about the process of becoming a scientist.

And not long ago, we sat down with someone who's working in the local laser lab and he's, you know, spends a year, spends two years designing experiments and ideas and hypotheses about what's going to work.

And you get you get all this build up.

And sometimes it does not work the way you expect.

Or sometimes you get you get feedback and.

Outcomes that surprise you.

And that probably, frankly, frustrate or bum you out because it's like, boy, this is a lot of work in this.

And we really felt good about this, but it's still information that should help you in the future.

You have to have internalized.

It doesn't always work.

Jean, do students have to go through that at Fairport where it's like, we're going to work for a year on this, and hopefully we can get to the other side of this, but we're going to learn something either way.

Is that the is that the attitude.

>> That is the key to the program?

Um, I'm going to tell you as a teacher, um, I going, having students go through that and seeing that this is a real thing that real businesses and real government institutions put their people through the trial and error and, and learning from your mistakes and keeping going forward and not being discouraged is huge.

But then like I got after I retired, NASA came to me and asked me to be a mentor.

So I got to help teacher students and teachers throughout the country over the last five, six years.

And watching students of all types and teachers as the teachers are trying to do these programs.

Many of them have not been based on the, um, the inquiry method of teaching.

And so this is an amazing thing to watch.

The growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the, the year with the final project to watch that growth of students and the pride, they come out of it with.

You should ask them about that.

>> Oh, I mean, this is where getting to the good stuff here.

So Fairport's on the list this year, only about five here.

How many times does Fairport gone to Houston for this?

>> Well, so the first time we went as a class was in 2015.

So it's been 11 years.

And up until the pandemic, we were sending about half of the students in our class.

So we were sending 2 or 3 teams every year.

So I don't know, maybe this is the eighth time I think we've gone pandemic well slowed everybody down, right?

So and we weren't doing much for a couple of years.

But you know, now we're back in it.

So I would say we've been going probably 7 or 8 years, and we send people almost every year.

>> All right.

So because it's right next to Sloane, I want you for the for the YouTube audience, you got to hold this thing up.

We've shown the YouTube audience a picture of this, but Sloane got it in studio.

And so there's the actual picture, um, from Sloane Keller.

But now Sloane is going to kind of put this thing together, and then Sloane and Luke are going to talk about this again.

What do you call this thing?

>> Just our container or our box, although that's not quite accurate because it doesn't exactly have four corners, but box is a little bit simpler.

So we have threads right here where the lid screws on, kind of like a peanut butter jar or any other kind of container.

And this just goes on here.

And kudos to Luke for all the 3-D printing.

That's how we made this container.

>> Now hold that thing up there because we've got.

So there you go.

Sloane.

I'm going to make you a studio director so you can see up in the corner here for the YouTube audience here, Sloane is holding a cylinder.

I called it a moon bucket, but it's a cylinder.

It's a black cylinder, and it's got threads that Luke will talk about in a minute.

But the purpose of this cylinder, this container Sloane, is to carry what.

>> So this would carry regolith, which is moon dust and rocks.

>> Say that word again.

>> Regolith.

>> Regolith.

>> It's a fun word to say.

>> Okay.

>> Moon, moon, dust and rocks.

And why do you need a container like that?

>> So it's really important for these samples of regolith to be pristine so they can be analyzed by NASA.

Because there's so much data we can collect from looking at these samples.

And they need to be non contaminated by any kind of organic compounds that could be on the spaceship that they're being transported on.

So we need to make sure that the samples don't get any like human skin cells.

That could be from the astronauts or any other kind of organic material, because they need to be perfect when they're being studied.

So we know exactly what they're composed of or what kind of compounds could be in the samples.

>> Very cool.

Very cool idea.

Go ahead.

>> Because the the composition of what the regolith actually is is very, very important.

As companies like NASA are trying to better understand the history of our universe and the world.

And so having that accuracy of the samples is very, very important.

And achieving that was the hardest part of our project because, uh, to simplify it, the dust on the moon will ruin any seal.

And if you don't have a seal, the organic matter from the spaceship will get into the samples.

And essentially ruin them.

So we had to figure out a way to cover our O-ring, which is what creates our seal.

While they're placing the samples into the container and then somehow seal the container without the ring being exposed to the moon dust.

>> How'd you do it?

>> So here, do you want to pass it over to me?

>> Now?

Do your best to describe this for the audio audience that is not watching this on YouTube as well.

Here.

Go ahead.

>> Luke.

Here, let me take this off.

Okay.

So essentially.

>> So cool.

>> For the for the audio listeners, it's a container.

>> And Luke, your dad's in the visual arts.

So look up there and make sure people.

>> Can see you.

>> There you go.

>> Here.

I'm just screwing this off.

>> Okay.

>> So here if you can see it.

So around the inside of our top, there's an O ring, which is what compresses and creates our seal.

And then right here on the top of the container is where the O-ring will sit.

And that's where it gets compressed.

But the problem is when you have an open container for our audio listeners, if you have an open container and you think about sticking your hand in an open container, your hand is very, very close to the outside of it.

And so when they're placing these rocks inside of this container, they're gloves that are covered in the dust are rubbing up against it.

The rocks are rubbing up against it, and it's putting all of that nasty dust around where the O-ring is going to interface with it.

And it's going to render the seal useless.

So what we created was essentially a cover that goes over the top of it.

So while the astronauts are placing the samples into our container, their gloves aren't rubbing up against the edge where the O-ring is interfacing with it, and they can also scoop with it.

And the rocks and the dust isn't clinging to it.

And then when they're ready to put the top back on, they just remove this lid or got it in here.

Yeah.

>> The really interesting thing about our project is that a previous version was made with the Apollo missions in 1969.

They needed a lunar sample container, although it's quite different from ours, to transport the samples, because this is the first time we had ever been on the moon.

So samples were even more vital than they are now.

So we know that the dust was a problem when they were working with the first container, because multiple of the seals failed for the first containers, because the dust was so electrostatic, which means it clings to the seal due to an electric charge.

So we know from data collected from previous missions that the dust was going to be a big problem for our seal.

>> I was.

>> Getting the engineering report.

>> Yeah, I was going to ask this.

So this was not obviously this wasn't the first attempt to create something that would allow for a non contaminated sample to be collected.

But it's interesting to Sloan's point that this was trial and error for NASA.

For years in moon missions.

And you know, if you get contaminated samples, you figure out what's going wrong here.

How did this thing stand up?

I mean, ultimately does this work?

>> So we haven't we did a underwater test, which is one of the requirements for two minutes.

And it, um, was airtight underwater for two minutes.

No water got in.

So that was the requirement that filled NASA's requirement.

Obviously, the design that NASA would create if they were to take pieces of this design into a real design, they would use different materials.

The precision of the manufacturing would be a lot closer to what it really would be.

And so it would they create a better sample.

Do we have the picture of that?

Actually, when we went to Houston, the original um lunar sample box, if we could pull that up, maybe or.

No.

>> Oh, we don't have it, but.

>> Oh, okay.

Gotcha.

So so when we went to Houston, we were actually able to see the original container and we were able to look at all the damage on it.

And like.

>> The, oh, geez.

>> Yeah, really, that went to space.

We were able to see all the damage on it, and we were all pointing out things on it because we all read the engineering report and we kind of knew everything about it.

So to see it in person was really cool.

>> Wow.

Go ahead.

>> When we first started our project, we were kind of elated to find an engineering report where like, sweet, our work here is done.

NASA already made the project.

What else is there for us to do?

But it was really interesting reading the report for the first time.

And I got to the end and it was like a summary of how they performed.

And when I was reading it, I was like, wait, that that can't be right.

They failed a few times.

So that was kind of a moment where we realized what direction we could take with our project and what we could improve upon.

And just seeing that container that we studied so much on our own in Houston, on display was it was really interesting.

And even seeing the damage to the seal in real life was just kind of mind blowing.

>> What?

Uh, so first of all, it's a really cool story, but to Luke's point about, you know, if NASA is going to use this, they'll probably engineer it, you know, a little slightly higher.

Um, grade here, who, who made your container here?

>> So, um, it was obviously a group group effort, but I did all the CAD designing and 3-D printing.

>> So you did.

It was a 3-D printer.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

The 3-D printer was what created all the stuff that you see in black.

And then the other stuff was purchased off of Amazon or other places.

>> Wow.

How many total students on this team?

>> Three.

>> Okay, so the you want to shout out your third team member here.

>> Yes.

Shout out Leah back at home.

Um, Leah Morris.

Yes.

Leah Morris.

She's also a sophomore.

She's in my grade.

And yeah, we couldn't do it without the three of us.

I'm sad she couldn't be here today.

But yes, it was definitely a group effort.

>> Okay, so go ahead.

>> Well, I was just going to say that when when we went to Houston, that the point of that is to do the final design showcase they call it.

And it's held in Rocket Park around the Saturn V rocket.

Um, so the students are setting up on tables.

It's a, again, a giant poster session of the, the final evolution of their project over the course of the year.

But one of the other, in addition to being on display and meeting other students from other schools and other teams, which is a huge bonus to going to Houston.

And the networking that happens among the young people, but also to meet some NASA engineers, um, some directors of programs at NASA.

But every year they get to send a couple astronauts in to talk with the students.

So I, um, we were fortunate to get to talk with Aaron Overcash, who is a astronaut candidate.

She's starting she started in the fall hoping to be part of, I think, an ES mission, if I'm not mistaken.

But she talked to the to them about their project and she had some really great questions for them.

>> Yes.

Her question for us, that really stuck with me was what, what did you learn from working together?

And we definitely learned how important it is to work as a team and how kind of team building really brought us to where we were.

We wouldn't be able to go to Houston if we weren't also close as a team.

Like we always tell the story how every Monday when we came to school, ninth period NASA class, we would spend at at least 20 minutes talking about our weekends and catching up and really getting to know each other.

And while maybe in class, we could have been using that time for maybe a bit of a more productive purpose, we I don't think we could have ever made it to Houston without really being close to each other and getting to know each other and not being afraid to make mistakes or say something stupid, because just really building that team bond made us work really well together in an engineering sense.

>> So like, you know that Luke is a snowboarder.

>> Yeah.

>> You know that Luke is a snowboarder and you know that Sloane has a great taste in music.

>> Yeah.

>> Things like that.

>> Yeah.

And like, like, uh, Sloane said, little did we know, every single Monday we were getting to know each other a little bit better.

And that's what I think really allowed us to excel as a team, because we were so comfortable with each other.

There were no bad ideas.

No one was afraid to speak their mind.

No one was afraid to throw out any ideas.

And I think that's really what allowed us to gel as a team and to create, you know, our container that took us to Houston.

>> Yeah.

So let me bring in our remote guest on a couple of these points.

First of all, Jean Gordon, I think it is really cool to hear the students talk about what it's like to see that original container that did have contamination and damage, and to kind of confirm for them that even at the highest levels, there's going to be errors, there's going to be bad assumptions, there's going to be mistakes that you've got to fix.

Um, you know that science is not this perfect simple linear line to the top, right >>?

>> Oh, but.

>> The whole point of the program is to show students it's, this is a marathon.

It's not a sprint.

You have to get through.

You got to go through those tough points, right?

When you start losing energy or when you when when something goes wrong, you start getting an ache.

You got to get working.

And that's what that's what Hunge does it this whole year long project allows students to go through those minor inconveniences.

They seem major.

At that point.

You're going through them.

But later on you're just looking back at them going, I can't believe that stopped us, you know?

And you and you just keep moving on and on.

Um, I'd also like to make one point about what Sloan was talking about there, about the idea that team dynamics.

Yep.

Um, and that is that the idea that team building was such an important part of the stuff we did at Fairport?

Um, Donna and I came up with a lot of things in the beginning, including like game Fridays, Fridays, where in the beginning of the year where we did not do work, we played collaborative games in order to get the groups going together.

When we designed the course, a major part of the grading and grading in air quotes, you, Donna was probably laughing at that.

Um, was was the, uh, the idea of team building and the kids had to learn about that because we've all experienced the science lab group where one person does the work and the rest of them kind of slide by, that cannot work in HUNCH.

>> You agree with that, Donna?

>> 100%.

This, um, it was a constant in the early days when we first started this as a class, we had to figure out, are we seriously expected to give them a grade because it's so different than other classes, right?

Yeah.

You're not going to give you oh, that was an 85 or was it an 84?

You know, like Jean and I didn't really want any part of that.

But we also needed to give kids, um, some feedback, like how are things progressing?

Are you, um, you know, how are you showing growth?

How is your prototype developing?

And, um, and parents want to know that administrators want to know that the community wants to know that.

And so we worked pretty hard in the early days of, of figuring out how can we, we had, we had checklists and rubrics.

We tried multiple different.

We tried and failed at different ways to come up with a method to give feedback.

And we tried actually giving them grades.

We tried pass fail, we tried giving only four.

We tried a variety of things in the end.

Currently it is a pass fail class that we have, but there are benchmarks and there are requirements in each quarter that need to be demonstrated by the students that you have met.

This standard as flow was was speaking of, there are deadlines, there are benchmarks, there are our that we have to meet both for NASA and for us locally.

Yeah.

>> So flow, you've heard the students describe their creation, how they do.

>> Um.

>> So first off, I do want to make a comment about, um, teamwork because that is one of the major things.

If you ask any NASA engineer, did they ever do a project by themselves?

They'll say no, it's always a part of the team.

And that's a 21st century skill that needs to be developed young so that they succeed no matter what their job is.

Right.

Um, so I also tell students right up in the very first time I meet with them that the hardest thing that they have to do is to make it simple.

I tell them it's harder to make something simple than complex.

And I have to say that this team excelled in making it as simple as possible.

I mean, they developed just a sleeve to put on there.

When I think so many other teams went so complicated.

And these these students working together as a really great functional team where no idea was a bad idea, came up with the most simple, um, uh, solution to the problem, which is very hard to do.

It's much easier to make it complex.

So congratulations to that team for doing that.

>> Thanks, flow.

>> Thank you.

And flow.

Is it realistic in the future that what they created at Fairport is going to be used in space, you know, on the moon somewhere else?

>> Absolutely.

There's other features in that.

Um, even, you know, we, we used a box.

They saw that the first, um, sample collector was a box.

Well, stuff collects in corners.

They made it um cylinders so that there are no corners.

There are a lot of features.

Our projects actually usually are a combination of several different designs brought together.

Um, so that we, we will probably use some of their feature, but then there will be um, many more contributions before something like that would go up to space.

And that's happened over and over again that a school designed something and then another school helps out with it and another school.

We use the best features from every project to make the final design for the lunar sample box.

And hopefully that will go up to to help the astronauts collect samples on the moon.

>> It's a great story.

If you're just joining us, we're talking about NASA's HUNCH program.

For the better part of, well, more than two decades now, NASA has worked with high schools and programs across the country.

34 states, more than 500 different programs and students work for a year designing possible prototypes that could be used to solve real problems for NASA.

For its astronauts, such as stowage lockers, galley tables, slippers, all kinds of things that are realistic issues.

And over the years, NASA reports that more than 4000 different items have been taken up to the International Space Station, who've been essentially come through this kind of design program.

Fairport High School has been working on NASA HUNCH for years.

And this team this year that you're meeting when all the way to Houston and offered a design that could very well be part of real solutions for astronauts in the future.

So we're talking to Florence Gold, a project manager for the NASA HUNCH Academy.

Gene Gordon is a retired Fairport Central School District teacher and a former NASA HUNCH mentor who's with us.

Donna Himmelberg, a teacher in NASA advisor at Fairport and students Luke Schulte Sloane Keller are with us.

Let's take this only break and we'll come right back with them on Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Wednesday on the next Connections we sit down with Rochester Council members Stanley Martin and Chiara Smith.

They're joining us to talk about a vote on what to do with old school buildings and whether to turn them over to charter schools in Rochester.

In our second hour.

How Ukrainians see the war through their art.

Talk with you on Wednesday.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

I got an email from Dr.

Alexis Vogt who says, Evan, I was thrilled to learn about this incredible Fairport NASA program from Luke last week when he toured my MCPs optics lab.

Kudos to Luke, to Sloane and the entire Fairport team.

NASA regularly reaches out to me directly to hire students from our Optical Systems Technology program at MCPs.

As the only program of its kind in the nation, we welcome more Fairport NASA scholars into our program.

Thanks for a great show.

It's Dr.

Alexis Vogt, pretty cool stuff there, Luke.

So what happened there?

>> So, uh, Alexis gave me a tour of the optics program at MCPs, like you mentioned.

And she did a really, really great job.

It was absolutely fantastic to see all the cool things and machines that they have there.

And what was really awesome was that a lot of the students had, um, a couple of the students were still there, but a lot of the professors were there grading papers or something, as it's the end of the year, and I got to have a lot of one on one conversations with professors there.

That kind of gave me an overview of optics and gave me some more insight into the industry.

And it was just really, really cool to learn all about it.

And there was one student, there were actually multiple students that I got to meet, but one student, uh, gave me his own personal story and how he got introduced to the optics program.

And it was just really, really cool to hear because a lot of the things that he was saying was resonating with my life a lot.

>> So what do you want to do?

I mean, you got your future figured out, yet you don't have to have it all figured out.

>> I don't have it all figured out, but optics is definitely an interest of mine.

So I actually messaged, um, Alexis Vogt and I said, you know, I'd love to, uh, shadow someone in the industry for a day.

I'd like to check it out, you know, really see what it's all about.

And I actually just got an email from her on the way over here saying that, uh, I might possibly be able to have a shadow experience with someone working at Optimax.

>> Great stuff.

Well, I mean, opening doors here.

What do you think, Donna?

>> I love it.

I love the Connections being made.

>> I listen, you're on the.

>> Right place for that.

It just came out.

That was it worked out well.

Right.

But we are.

That's what we're doing.

We're making Connections from the past, from Apollo to the present and to the future for these these students.

And, um, that was always from the beginning, Jean and I's hope of establishing this program and encouraging the exploration and opening doors.

Right.

What are your options?

What lies ahead?

We, we, we old folks, we don't know what lies ahead.

It's for them to, to figure out and engineer.

Right.

We don't even know.

So I love that you're exploring locally, but we're thinking globally.

>> Well, Sloane, do you have it figured out yet?

I mean, you're only a sophomore.

You don't have to have it all figured out.

>> I have some ideas.

I recently toured Colorado Boulder.

Um, it was gorgeous school and I've really been loving science.

And this course has taught me how much I really love engineering.

And so hopefully I'd like to do something in the science field, but it still have to see because I'm only 15.

I'm sure that'll change by the time I'm applying to colleges, so who knows?

>> It's just really cool to see the options and, and the opportunities that a program like this offers students.

I want to ask everyone on the panel, um, that because we've been talking about the experience that they had down in Houston, when were you guys there?

When were you in Houston?

>> It was April 26th through the 28th.

Real quick trip.

>> Okay.

So a little bit after the Artemis mission that went around the back side of the moon, right?

So I wonder if those kind of moments as a teacher, Donna, when you see a national story, when there's international attention on a mission like that, um, good timing that you end up going to Houston right thereafter.

How much does that fire people's imaginations and your own students?

Do you see it?

>> Oh, 100%.

I mean, you can the analogy can be made there.

You know, in an Olympic year when Summer Olympics, everybody gets in the pool, everybody starts running and jumping, right?

Just as the Olympics fire up our imagination, our aspiration.

I think, you know, when we see a mission like Artemis and we haven't seen that in many, many years.

Um, and to see it kind of comes back to teamwork, how personable, how adept, how loving that team was the Artemis crew, how many appearances they made and talking about their experience.

That's very relatable.

Even if you don't understand any of the, the, the history or the science, the engineering, but you understand the humanity of it, right?

And that ability and that curiosity to explore.

And I think, um, you know, that gets all of us and we're all seeing the same thing at the same time.

How often does that happen anymore?

We watch recordings and, and, and we listen to podcasts and we, we record lots of things, but we're not all on the same page at the same time.

And I think when you can see it happen live and wonder at it and, and ask the questions, it's hugely inspiring.

>> What about you, Luke?

What was it like watching that mission?

>> Um, I think it was really, really inspiring.

I think a lot of times now, people aren't, aren't necessarily all the time seeing things that are just like, wow, that just gets you so fired up.

It just really, it makes you wonder.

It really makes you think, you know, there's not a ton of times throughout my day where I'm like, wow, I really, really wonder about that.

But watching that mission and watching that progression of that was like, wow, that's just, you know, it really makes you pause and just think about it for a little bit, which was really, really cool.

>> It probably makes you think Sloane like literally anything is possible when you see that.

>> It was so inspiring.

And obviously we have, we've been very motivated all year with this project, but seeing in class and we live stream as much as we could of it.

I mean, I think there was a good couple of days in class where we didn't do much engineering.

We were glued to the smart board because we were live streaming this mission, and I think it's just so inspiring, like to have this kind of coincide with our timeline of having going to Houston and working with NASA and just seeing what could happen as a result of all the hard work.

I mean, you think about all the engineering and when you're looking at the spaceship on like a broadcast or a video, every little thing I look at, I think there was a team that engineered that.

There's a team that designed that.

And going to Houston, looking at all the the displays and all the recreations of past ships and spaces, you got to think there's somebody behind that.

And it's kind of inspiring to think that we can someday be the people behind those missions.

>> Oh man, you've got Florence Gold.

You got to love that answer.

>> I did.

That was awesome.

Thank you.

Sloane.

And it's, it's, um, it's, it goes beyond, you know, space exploration is not just for one country.

It's international.

And in order for us to succeed, we need this international teamwork to, to work out for us.

And the Artemis II mission where, uh, we sent a Canadian astronaut.

Um, so first time Canadian and international astronaut went to space.

We also the Artemis mission was the first female astronaut to go to the, to the moon.

And the first person of color.

So this diversity was so important to bring, um, to our Artemis mission.

And actually, um, our first missions, Apollo will, our Artemis was a twin sister of Apollo.

And so that's where we got the first woman, first person of color, first international.

And, and, um, we had Reid Wiseman.

He was, um, a, our commander and he was a very experienced astronaut with the others too.

And, but that was awesome.

>> You know, Gene, um, I'm sure over the years, we've all had moments where your, your attention is on a story like this.

And depending on how old you are, you know, maybe it was a 1969 event for me.

I was in second grade when the challenger happened.

And as hard as that was, that was still a moment of national rallying.

Um, there's not a whole lot that brings together people in a truly unified way anymore.

And when we kind of break the boundaries of our planet and we, we push out into the stars and we do things that seem impossible, um, there are incredible triumphs.

There have been tragedies, but it has all brought us together in ways that I don't know what does anymore.

Gene.

I mean, I don't know if that sounds like overly waxing poetic, but really, what does it.

>> The one of the things that I discovered when I got hired as a NASA mentor was just mentioning that I worked at NASA, got this conversation going, and every single time, um, I would, I got afraid to mention it at places just because it became the dominant discussion point.

Um, and, and, but the thing about it is NASA truly brings everybody together.

There it is.

It is a thing that everyone is excited about.

And it, and so things like the Artemis mission and all the other future missions that are going to go out there will bring people together.

Um, I, I literally was at one of our local, um, brewery, uh, breweries during one of the, um, the live um, streams coming from our Artemis was on and the people there had didn't even know that Artemis was going on.

And as soon as they found out, they were like they were, they knew that I had had worked at NASA and they were like, everybody that worked there was all of a sudden all around me asking me questions and talking about it.

And it became the thing they left it on during the time I was on it.

Yeah.

Um, during and during the following week.

So it was kind of fun, um, to, to, to get people excited.

But that happens every single time that anybody has anything.

It brings up NASA anywhere.

>> I, I'm glad that you still feel that way.

Jean.

In a time when it seems like we can politicize just about anything.

Um, but I, I do think in general, that's, that is how humans feel.

There is a sense of pride in knowing what we are able to achieve, especially when it looks impossible.

It looks there's a reason that there's a very small.

It's not a large contingent, but there's a reason there's a small contingent of people who think the moon landing must have been faked on a soundstage, because it seems like science fiction impossible.

Like like I'm just going to go ahead.

I'm going to Cape for those people right now and say, I get it.

I get why it seems impossible.

This is really hard stuff, but these are the problems we're solving.

And, and flow may be a good place to kind of close with you is this when we think about all the problems that are on this planet, there are occasions where people will say like, well, you know, like, shouldn't we focus on solving problems here before we kind of go out and look for exoplanets or think about how far we could travel or what we might be able to do next.

Tell me what you think the value is in continuing to answer hard questions and push our boundaries.

>> So that's a great question.

And what I always tell students, and I believe everyone needs to understand this, that we do space exploration for the benefit of humankind on earth.

And that is the reason why we keep doing this space exploration.

We know we have problems here, but guess what?

We might be able to solve cancer.

We might be able to figure out how to grow things that, um, that are drought resistant.

Um, in space that we can bring to earth to feed our population.

We, every time we do a project and I tell my students, I don't want you to even do a project unless you can think of a way that it helps man on earth.

And that's our motto for space exploration, really, it's for helping humankind on earth.

And as we explore that, who knows what we'll find.

I'm hoping that when we go to the moon, we might find helium three.

That could solve our energy problems because that could solve our wars, right?

Who knows what we're going to find?

But I am really sure it's going to benefit, um, man and women on earth.

>> I mean, Donna Himmelberg I've known flow for 50 minutes.

I can hear the optimism.

This is one of the more optimistic people we've had on Connections 100%.

Do you find as a teacher over the years that you've taught, are you more cynical or more optimistic now?

>> Oh, more optimistic.

This is why I do this.

This is, you know, there are there are updates.

Everybody has up days and down days.

But coming back to this program and reaching out to, well, working with the students, of course, but but reaching out to these mentors who share this common passion.

That's what we started the program with today, talking about passion.

And that's definitely what keeps me going.

>> Well, let me just say to the students, utterly, sincerely, there's enough that makes people cynical.

And I just want to thank both of you for coming in and giving us a reason to be the absolute opposite of that, to be optimistic, to be excited not only about what you're going to do, but what it's a reminder of what humankind can do.

So it's been a great hour, and the students Sloane Keller Luke Schulte Sloane sophomore, Luke's a junior at Fairport High School.

And there are participants in the NASA lunch program.

Um, you guys sounds like sounds like you got big futures ahead of you.

Um, uh, are you doing Hutch next year, or is this, like a one shot deal for you guys?

>> Um, in my high school career, I'm going to try to broaden my horizons as much as possible.

So while I did really, really enjoy this course, I'm going to try to take a variety of courses next year to continue to figure out what I like.

>> Yeah, you're a busy dude, I get it.

>> Sloane yeah, similar to Luke, I'm going to be trying lots of new electives next year just to really figure out where I want to go with my life.

But definitely senior year, I believe I will be retaking this class because, you know, this is just been such an incredible experience and I think I can learn something new every single time I retake this class.

>> Congratulations to you guys.

>> Thank you so much for having us.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

Thanks for sharing your outstanding innovation there.

Luke Schulte.

Sloane Keller Donna Himmelberg, chemistry teacher and NASA advisor at Fairport.

All in studio.

Thank you for being here as well.

>> Thank you for having us, Evan.

>> It's been great.

Gene Gordon great meeting you.

Thanks for spending some time with us.

Jean.

>> Thank you very much for having me.

>> And Florence Gold may I think of you every time I start to get cynical?

Thank you for the work you're doing with NASA and the HUNCH program.

>> Thank you so much for bringing this to light.

I really appreciate it.

>> Great stuff.

And from all of us at Connections, it's a big week for us.

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Thanks for listening to Connections, and we're back with you tomorrow.

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