Building a Mars colony with Robotics

Project Location

Country:

Greece

City:

Trikala

Organization

Organization Name:

TriRoboNauts

Organization Type:

Other

Website

https://padlet.com/kareri/trirobonauts

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Project Type

Education up to 15 years

Project Description

Description Frase (max. 500 characters):

Our team, TriRoboNauts, is oriented to Inquiry based Learning for Space Awareness through Robotics. We built a project, "A Mars colony" in order the further exploration of our Milky Way. We believe that Astronomy and Space can be approached better, through robotics hands-on activities. Our project was ranked 2nd in the National Educational Robotics competition 2016, https://tinyurl.com/ybppo67t , in Athens, and had been selected from over 800 participants from 36 countries as one of the ten best StarT projects in 2017, http://start.luma.fi/en/ideas/the-best-of-start-2017/

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters):

Team Name: TriRoboNauts (Trikala Robotic Astronauts)

1. Fotis Roumeliotis

2. Nektarios Siomos

3. Stefania Spahou

4. Vasilis Staridas

5. Galini Stafila

Teacher-Coach: Eleftheria Karagiorgou, Computer Science and Robotics teacher

Our project is a Mars colony, that includes:

1. Space ship launch base

2. Space ship

3. Communication centre- Satellite dish

4.Greenhouse with control centre for the temperature, the light and the conditions for the growth of our vegetables (like spinach)

5. Oxygen producing centre for the greenhouse

6. Communication satellite and meteorological satellite

7. Stone robotic collector from Olympus mountain that converts stones into soil for the greenhouse

8. Rover for the transportation of stones

9. Solar panels for producing energy

The space colony on Mars is the start for the Milky Way exploration. All the above were built with Lego and Lego WeDo

Inspiration for our project:

• the text “Fantastic trips into space”, from the Greek school book of 5th grade which is part of the Greek book of Rena Petropoulou, "Ο Σοφούλης ο Ψαλιδούλης και η απόδραση στο Διάστημα".•

• the project "Popeye on Mars", which has been developed by Greek scientists and the main idea is the building of a greenhouse for the cultivation of spinach on Mars. The specific project has been presented in a NASA contest.

The whole project was based on a lot of testings and changes. You can see our video of the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ogB0Djf54A (in English), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mciSHkxI7A (in Greek)

The project doesn't end here: We organised an "Asteroid Day" event, in order to learn more about Asteroids and their impact to our Solar System. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnOrfEBtX_c

In our learning diary, you can see more about our activities: https://padlet.com/kareri/trirobonauts

How long has your project been running?

2015-12-01 00:00:00

Objectives and Innovative Aspects

The objectives of the project "Building a Mars colony with Robotics" are:

1. raising Space awareness through Robotics

2. learning to collaborate in a team

3. learning through Inquiry based learning

4. learning coding through Robotics, with Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/)

5. learning about storytelling, by using our imagination for the scenario of the project

The instruments used in our project are:

1. Lego WeDo+motors+sensors

2. Internet for searching informations about space and Mars

3. Scratch environment for coding

4. Windows Movie Maker for the videos

5. Learning Diary-Padlet (https://padlet.com)

Results

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters):

The students-members of the team started reading more about Space and Astronomy, whereas, their interest for Eucational Robotics is bigger. The bonds among the members of the team are strong. A member of the team, Stefania, was inspired and built a "Solar System" project, which combines craftwork and Lego WeDo, as a school project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d3GI94leEw

How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters):

Through our videos, we can calculate the interaction with users, since we can measure the views of our videos and the like/dislike preferences

Sustainability

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?:

From 1 to 3 years

What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?:

Less than 10.000 Euro

What is the source of funding for your project?:

Other

Specify:

Robotics team

Is your project economically self sufficient now?:

Transferability

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?:

What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters):

I don' t know if others are interested in our project or in our team, what I know is that we have passion and love for what we are doing, as a team. I want to believe that the students -members of the team see some other aspects of STEAM that in formal education is very rare to happen. I hope that being members of TriRoboNauts will change their lives and potential for the better!

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?:

Yes