High school students go on a special mission

The Space Symposium showcases a lot of companies that use technology that protects us all.

A group of high school students recently got a chance to use some of the same technology.

Maryn Carpenter and Dylan Traylor were part of an elite group of visitors to the Space Foundation on Wednesday.

Teams of students from across the Front Range had to perform a special mission.

Bill Yucuis of the Air Force Association said, “during a seven day period collect data and download it to a computer here in Colorado Springs.”

Each team faced challenges along the way.

“Changing a variable depending on the situation even a tiny bit, can disturb your results immensely,” said Maryn Carpenter, a Junior at Lewis Palmer High School.

Dylan Traylor, a Junior at Vista Ridge High School said, “(our biggest challenge was) the tight constraints that they had about what orbit your satellite can be in.”

After the clock ran out, the teams presented their findings.

The exercise that the students performed at the Space Foundation today used real world data to solve a real world problem.

It’s part of a push to bring students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics – or STEM.

AGI provided the software. The fresh perspective of the students showed in the solutions that they came up with impressed observers from the company.

“(There were) a couple of different approaches to solve the same problem which is great because they can share that information,” said Stephanie Eftimaides.

The students will help to fill the jobs of the future. Many of those will be in the space industry.

Maryn said, “I want to have a focus on chemistry, hopefully theoretical chemistry working in theoretical physics.”

“I’m probably going to major in an aerospace degree somewhere,” said Dylan.

Which is great news for them and the nation’s workforce.

The students are part of a group called Stellar Explorers, it’s sponsored by the Air Force Association.