High school students run Mars simulation at Polytechnic New Albany

Students participate in "Purdue: Mission to Mars" at Purdue Polytechnic New Albany

Thirty high school students participated in “Purdue: Mission to Mars,” a day-long event at Purdue Polytechnic New Albany. The NASA-modeled simulation is designed to aid students in their real-world knowledge of engineering principles through hands-on project-based learning.

Six student teams assumed different engineering roles to program algorithms and other features on robots to navigate an artificial surface of Mars to accomplishing certain tasks that were part of the simulation.

Andrew Takami, director of Purdue Polytechnic New Albany, as well as School of Engineering Technology professors Matthew Turner, Richard Kopp, Rustin Webster, Joseph Dues and Damon Sisk held the event to encourage young people toward STEM (science, technology, education and math) career fields at Purdue Polytechnic. Turner, Kopp, Webster and Dues are associate professors and Sisk is a continuing lecturer.

“I know we did well because some of the students said they were not even planning to go to college because they did not realize colleges could be so relevant,” said Takami.

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