Congratulations to Swaroop Sahoo, Ameet Rao, Aashrith Banda, Shlok Bhavsar, Satya Kokonda, Surya Mohankumar, Nikash Sonnia, and Hasini Sundarraman. A local team of students at CSW have been selected as one of 60 nationwide finalists for the prestigious NASA Techrise Challenge. This competition encourages middle and high school students alike to design and build innovative experiments that can be tested in sub-space orbit by NASA in Arizona this May.
Moderated by Mr. Clark and Mrs. Chalima, their project focuses on understanding how protective polymer films, commonly used to shield solar cells in spacecraft, degrade when exposed to harsh space environments. With support from NASA engineers and $1.5k funding to build their prototype, they will collect real data on how radiation exposure alters the performance of solar-protective materials.
As a finalist, this team is ranked among the top young researchers in the country and demonstrates their potential to solve real-world problems in an innovative and scientific manner. As the CSW students progress, their project represents an important step towards improving the state of space-based energy systems in the future.