Six Offaly students heading to NASA this week

Six students from Oaklands Community College in Edenderry are packing their bags this evening as they prepare to fly to the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida to participate in the Student Astronaut Challenge this week.

There was huge interest in the 5th year group when the trip was proposed last year. Students applied to participate and the team were all selected based on their strong applications and Junior Cert results in Maths and Science in particular.

The students selected are Abdullah Butt, Rory Egan, Alan Harte, Katie Lawlor, Leanne Mallen and Thomas McAuliffe. They will travel to Florida on Tuesday, February 5 with their teacher, Ms Guinan.

They have been working hard over the past few months, staying after school to prepare their lab challenge and practice the simulator. There are four parts to the competition; a lab challenge, engineering challenge, landing challenge and a simulator challenge.

This will be the third time that Oaklands have had a team in the competition. Once again, they will be the only Irish and international team to participate in the competition. The first team won the lab challenge, came second in the simulator and finished in 4th place overall.

The 2017 team won the landing challenge, came second in the lab challenge and finished in third place overall.

The school are hoping for similar success this time around.

For the lab challenge, the 2019 bunch had to select an aspect of weather that could use an improvement and devise an experiment which could provide a solution to improve the aspect.

For their topic they are looking at rainfall in Ireland and focusing on flooding. They hope their proposed solution will
ease flooding and alleviate potential flood damage. This draws on geographical, scientific and engineering knowledge. Their aim is that their solution will also be environmentally friendly and reduce costs and damage to property and roads. They have already submitted their proposal to the organisers and they will present their proposal to NASA judges in the Kennedy Space Centre during the competition.

They will also participate in an engineering challenge. This will require the students to work as a team and draw on their mathematical and engineering skills to solve the posed question. NASA engineers will again judge their performance.

The next two challenges are based on simulators. For the main simulator challenge, three students will be in the simulator and three will be in Mission Control. Again, teamwork and communication skills are vital in order to successfully launch the shuttle, orbit earth and land safely back on the runway. For the simulator, Abdullah Butt will assume the role of Mission Commander assisted by Pilot Thomas McAuliffe and Flight Engineer Leanne Mallen.

In Mission Control, Katie Lawlor, Rory Egan and Alan Harte will communicate with the shuttle and talk them through their
launch and, orbit and landing. The second simulator challenge will require two students from Mission Control to land the shuttle. One will land while the other talks them through the landing and then they will reverse roles and the second person will land the shuttle.

The team also have a logo which was designed by Katie Lawlor and represents the challenge ahead and all the members of the team. It also contains the school and Irish colours. They will wear this with pride over in Florida

"We would like to thank our main sponsors Bord na Mona Powergen, including Edenderry Power Station and Mountlucas Wind Farm, and all the sponsors who have come on board to help make this trip a possibility," the school said in a statement.

"These are Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, TK Building Services, Collen Construction, Gemfler, Polar Ice, Kaideen & Co, O’Grady Cranes and Café India."

"We really appreciate your support, without it the trip would not be possible. We hope to do our school proud at the Kennedy Space Centre."

You can follow the Oaklands Community College students and their progress in Florida on their Facebook page or
@OaklandsCC on Twitter.