A decision to enter a challenge has put FHS computer science students in  a position to control a satellite in space.
         Computer science students at Friendswood High School with the assistance of their computer science teacher, Annette Walter, decided to apply for a position to compete in the Zero Robotics National Challenge held in conjunction with the MIT Space Systems Department and NASA.
         Students participating include Joe Le, Garrison Neel, Dan Rutledge, Noah Kessler, Joe Rogers, Dustin House, Bobby Brown, Winston Wu, Kyle Wiley, Ryan Ham, Rachel Goeken and Quinn Swanson.
         The on-line application process was extremely long and rigorous, according to Walter. In addition, the students were required to submit an essay along with the on-line application that the teacher had to complete.
         The students were so excited about the possibility of competing in such a prestigious event that they met on a Saturday afternoon to write the essay while their teacher filled out the application.
         “I felt that my students had so much to offer to this competition. MIT and NASA were looking for schools that had attended programming competitions as well as robotics ones. My students have been successful in both areas, having won two UIL computer science championships back to back,” Walter said. “I thought this challenge would be an opportunity to give my students an experience in implementing a real world/real time programming application.”
         Last week, the group received an email from MIT congratulating them on being invited to participate in their challenge. There were 23 other teams across the nation selected to compete. The FHS group is the only team from Texas that was accepted to this competition.
         According to the MIT website, “Zero Robotics is a robotics programming competition that opens the world-class research facilities on the International Space Station (ISS) to high-school students. The robots are miniature satellites called SPHERES (Synchronized Position-Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites).
         Students will actually write programs in the Friendswood High School computer science lab that will control a satellite in space. The goal is to build critical engineering skills for students, such as problem solving, design thought process, operations training, and team work.
         Ultimately NASA and MIT scientists hope to inspire future scientists and engineers so that they will view working in space as "normal", and will grow up pushing the limits of engineering and space exploration.
         Each season starts with the unveiling of a game motivated by a challenging problem of interest to NASA and MIT.  Teams compete by programming a SPHERES satellite to achieve the game objectives while avoiding or interacting with other contestants. These programs must be "autonomous" - that is, the students cannot control the satellites during the test itself, the programs must be able to complete the objective on their own. 
         This year’s competition deals with using a SPHERE robot to find a solar array floating near the ISS, retrieve it and dock it on the ISS. There is also a competitor who is trying to do the same thing. The competition will run for about four minutes. The programmers have to take into account many external factors (without destroying their opponent) when designing their algorithms.
         There is a narrow timeline for this challenge. In mid-October, MIT will run a competition in simulation between different schools. This gives each school an opportunity to tweak their programs and make them more efficient. In November, the students submit their final code for testing at MIT's ground facilities, where satellites (identical to the ones on the ISS) can operate in 2D; the competition is webcast live to the schools. In December, the top eight schools (chosen from their combined scores of the simulation and ground scores) will compete in brackets aboard the ISS; the competition will be broadcast live to MIT where all teams will be invited to attend.
         The kick-off meeting was held recently with the students and NASA/College mentors who will be assisting the students.