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In NASA LEGO Contest, Students Aim For Space
By Elizabeth Howell
Sept. 15, 2013
Designed to gaze at the sun, a proposed satellite called “Sunbeam” has the usual
radio dishes and rocket engines you would expect of a spacecraft. The difference
between it and other orbiting craft? It is entirely constructed of LEGO bricks.
Sunbeam was one of the winning student designs picked out of a NASA design
contest this summer in conjunction with The LEGO Group, a Danish company that is
world-famous for its tiny construction bricks aimed at stimulating children’s
imaginations.
The contest invited budding aerospace engineers, generally ranging in age from
elementary to high school, to submit their ideas for space or aerospace designs
that could be used in the future.
NASA LEGO contest
photos, and LEGO blocks in space
“Our intention was to unleash everyone’s creativity and inspire participants to
combine real NASA research with imaginative flights of fancy,” said astronaut
Leland Melvin, who is now NASA’s associate administrator for education, in a
statement.
“Looking at the winning designs, it’s clear we did just that,” Melvin added.
“Sunbeam,” which was designed by Jay Semlis from England, took the grand prize
in the “Imagining Our Future Beyond Earth” category. NASA said the satellite is
intended to look at the sun’s outer corona, or the envelope of gas surrounding
the sun that is most easily visible during solar eclipses.
Runners-up in the category included “The ORACOM,” a Mars spacecraft made by the
United States’ Sergio Parra, and “Asteroid Initiative,” an idea to pick up and
move asteroids by Peter Hollander, also from the United States. NASA has an
initiative before Congress to robotically capture an asteroid and tow it near
the moon so astronauts can study its properties.
The “Flying Extinguisher 4000 Fish Eagle,” a winner in the “Inventing the Future
of Flight” category, is a long range supertanker that puts out wildfires. Image
released Sept. 5, 2013.
Credit: Composite by NASA/Jim BankeView full size imageIn the aerospace
category, the students were also required to write a technical paper explaining
how the model was put together, and how it “takes advantage of the ideas NASA is
working on and, possibly, even improves upon them,” NASA said.
In the aerospace category, the students were also required to write a technical
paper explaining how the model was put together, and how it “takes advantage of
the ideas NASA is working on and, possibly, even improves upon them,” NASA said.
The overall (age 13 and above) winner was Sweden’s Claes Sundstrom, whose
“Hydrogen Powered Regional Airliner” used a hybrid wing body and
hydrogen-fueled, turboelectric engines. The design is intended to cut down on
noise, fuel usage and emissions.
In the young student builders (age 13-18) group, the winner was a firefighting
airplane called “Flying Extinguisher 4000 ‘Fish Eagle;’ An Aerial Firefighter
of the Future,” built by William Nodvik from the United States.
The winners will get a LEGO trophy and a gift package from NASA that includes a
crew patch from one of Melvin’s shuttle missions. Melvin flew on STS-122 in 2008
and STS-129 in 2009.
Space.com
-end of report-
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