Outreach Events 2020

​The Alabama Astrobotics Team participates in many outreach events each cycle. Events range from on campus demonstrations to elementary school visits, with the aim to inspire students to be involved and interested in STEM activities and careers.  We are always looking for new outreach opportunities!

Reach to the Stars!

Alabama Astrobotics is proud to host visitors and tour groups throughout the academic year. We ask that each visitor places a black pin in our map of the United States to conclude their visit. Also featured on our map is each team member's hometown, signified by a red pin. The large red pin indicates the wonderful University of Alabama and the large black pin indicates Cape Canveral, FL, where NASA RMC is hosted each year. 

Tuscaloosa Magnet School
March 6 & 12, 2020
The Tuscaloosa Magnet School hosted members of Astrobotics to lead students in designing, building, and testing a balloon-powered car. The students had to use problem solving skill to take instructions on how to design a car made of a water bottle powered by a balloon releasing air.

Math Counts
February 22, 2020
Math Counts is a national math competition for middle school students held annually on the University's campus. Astrobotics met with the kids who were competing after their competition.

Chilton Christian Academy
February 19, 2020
Chilton Christian Academy, in Jemison, AL, hosted members of the team to present on our work as a team to the entire student body. The school enjoyed hearing about our work on the robot and asked lots of exciting questions about traveling to space.

Cockpit Innovation: In Stealth Fighter Jets
Spring 2020
​Victoria Whitehead, from Holy Spirit High School in Tuscaloosa, AL, is working with Alabama Astrobotics for her project in the West Alabama Regional Science Fair. She has been paired with Senior Member Gregory Shipowitz to further her technical knowledge of her project because of limited access to coding classes at her school. The point of Victoria's project is to make a fighter pilot's seat adjust based on the G-force experienced in the jet. She is using an accelerometer to measure the current acceleration of the pilot to calculate the Gs experienced which is sent as data to a Raspberry Pi. Based on this data, she will then use a linear actuator to adjust the pilot’s seat in response to eliminate G-LOC (Loss Of Consciousness). Victoria started developing this project last year, and received the honor of competing in Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair 2019; she hopes to travel to the international competition again this year.

Children's Hands on Museum
February 15, 2020
The Children's Hands on Museum hosted Alabama Astrobotics as a pop-up activity one weekend. Children in the museum stopped by our table to play with parts of the robot, watch a video of a competition run, and make paper airplanes. All the kids were excited to test their airplanes and race them across the room.

Pizitz Robotics
October 14, 2019
 The Pizitz Robotics Team toured our lab where we talked to them about our robotics team. We taught them about the parts we used and shared experiences about what it's like working in a lab. The Pizitz Robotics Team learned about what it's like working on a large scale project while having fun exploring possibilities of their futures in STEM.

Worlds of Work Career Expo
October 10, 2019
The Worlds of Work Career Expo, held at Shelton State Community College, introduces 5000 elementary school students from West Alabama to over 100 businesses. The goal of this expo is to teach students about careers as an engineer. The Alabama Astrobotics team showed off Stressy Bessy and showcased our best runs from last year's competition. 

E-day at The University of Alabama
October 3, 2019
E-day is an Open House hosted by the College of Engineering designed to share information about University admissions and programs. We set up displays in our lab and the SERC to help families and students to find out about our competition and understand more about our robot. We had over thirty students in the lab at once!
Family Weekend
September 20, 2019
Family weekend is a University event where prospective students along with their families can come to meet engineering student design teams. We displayed our robot and set up some prototype parts so that those interested could get a better understanding of our mission.

Pack 90 Cub Scouts
September 15, 2019
Pack 90 Cub Scouts earned their robotics patches after observing the Alabama Astrobotics' Stressy Bessy in action! The troop was encouraged to have fun while learning about how robots can be used for space exploration.

Alabama STEM Education
July 16, 2019
The University of Alabama hosted a group of approximately 80 students from Alabama STEM Education in Bessemer, AL. Astrobotics gave a robotics presentation related to upcoming space missions and the rovers needed for those missions, including a discussion about NASA's RMC.
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