The Rural Technology Fund + Teachers in Space are offering a new project to help rural students receive a hands-on opportunity to explore careers in the commercial space industry!
We’re selecting five classrooms that will have the opportunity to build functional CubeSat Emulators and send them on a High Altitude Balloon Mission to conduct experiments!
The five teachers in the classrooms we select will receive everything they need to help their students build their CubeSat Emulators. That includes enrollment in an online course demonstrating the build process, all the equipment necessary to build the CubeSat, a budget to customize the device, and personalized support and resources to help you along the way. Students will work with their teachers to design and build CubeSat Emulators, develop unique experiments, and launch their projects via a live-streamed high-altitude balloon mission. When you’re finished, your CubeSat will be returned to you, complete with the data it collected during flight!
The entire program is provided at no cost to participating schools.
Keep reading for details on the program and how to apply.
Project Expectations
What you’ll do
Enroll in and complete the TIS online course
Attend scheduled meetings
Attend office hours for personalized support, as needed
Build the CubeSat emulator with students
Create an experimental proposal and add to CubeSat construction
Send experiments to TIS for High Altitude Balloon Launch
Receive data from launch
What we’ll do
Create a collaborative space for the selected educators
Provide access to the online course
Provide information on scheduled online support meetings
Provide email support for all participants
Provide feedback on builds and experimental proposals
Collect CubeSats Emulators and launch on High Altitude Balloon
Send experimental data back to classrooms for analysis
To participate in this project, participants must meet these expectations:
- Classrooms must be in US rural, public schools
- Classrooms must take pre and post surveys administered by TIS
- Classrooms must meet all timeline milestones on schedule
- Teachers must make it to at least 2 of the 3 online meetings
- CubeSat Emulators must be constructed with student involvement
- CubeSat Emulators must be tested to work according to Logical Design prior to shipping to TIS for launch
- CubeSat Emulator build process should be documented with photos/videos and shared with TIS and RTF at each milestone
- Teachers must reach out to TIS for support when needed (we’re here to help if you get stuck)
- The project must be designed to reach multiple students in an educationally equitable manner (either as part of a class or after school program)
Check out this video of a recent High Altitude Balloon Launch from TIS:
