Outreach Events 2025 - 2026

​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!

Contact Us to Schedule an Event

Boys State Demonstration

This year, Alabama Astrobotics gave a demonstration of our rover functionality to Boys State participants visiting UA's campus.

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Summer Enrichment Workshop

This year, Alabama Astrobotics was invited to teach at a local Summer Enrichment Workshop. The team ran a Scratch coding activity with the Robotics class as well as giving a presentation on in-situ resource utilization to the Space class.

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Get on Board Day

Get on Board Day is a semi-annual event for UA student groups to recruit new members. We showcase our organization to thousands of students who attend UA and are looking for opportunities that the University provides. ​

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Walker Elementary School

During the Fall semester, Alabama Astrobotics visited Walker Elementary School bi-weekly to teach lessons and lead activities on various engineering topics. Lessons covered the engineering design process, Scratch coding, efficient use of communications, and more.

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Engineering Student Organization Showcase

This year, the Styslinger College of Engineering hosted the Engineering Student Organization Showcase, an engineering open house aimed at educating students, primarily Freshman, about engineering organizations at the University. Alabama Astrobotics attended the event and got to speak to students about our organization and NASA's Artemis missions.

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West Alabama Worlds of Work

Alabama Astrobotics provided an active display showcasing space robotics and potential careers at Shelton State Community College located here in Tuscaloosa, AL, for Worlds of Work (WoW). WoW is a career expo that brings numerous industry leaders and education partners together to showcase opportunities and careers to K-12 students in the area. ​

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STEM Showcase

Alabama Astrobotics set up an exhibit of our robot at this year's STEM Showcase and also served as project judges. STEM Showcase is an on-campus science fair for middle schoolers to work with UA professors on a research project. The event serves to promote awareness of and engagement with STEM research and careers.

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MATHCOUNTS

Alabama Astrobotics was invited by Dr. Lina Pu to educate middle school students participating in a MATHCOUNTS competition about NASA's Artemis Missions, our team, and the impact they can have on the future of space exploration. ​

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E-Day

Alabama Astrobotics ran a table at E-Day, an open house event that provides high school sophomores through seniors the chance to learn more about majors and career opportunities available in engineering and computer science.

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SWE WOW

This year, Alabama Astrobotics members were invited to speak at the Society of Women Engineers WOW! That's Engineering day camp for elementary school students. Astrobotics members spoke to students' parents about Alabama Astrobotics, NASA's Artemis Missions, and engineering at the University.

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Alabama Robotics Contest

The Alabama Robotics Competition is an event where students write programs that navigate their robot across a series of obstacle courses. The Alabama Astrobotics team ran a table showcasing our robot from 2023, Goby, for K-12 students to spark interest in the field of space robotics.

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RISE School

This year, as part of Alabama Astrobotic's outreach efforts, we have collaborated with the RISE School, a preschool on campus that educates learners of varying abilities. The Team was tasked with designing and building an interactive wall panel to assist with the school’s cognitive and physical therapy needs for its students three years old and younger. The project aims to develop the following skills in its users: gross motor, fine motor, speech and language, and cognitive. Based on our meetings with RISE, the   learning aid we set out to design consisted of LED diodes representing the colors of the rainbow with corresponding buttons the students could press. When pressing the buttons an onboard speaker would announce the name of the color. If two buttons were pressed, when the colors intersected, they would mix and create their resultant color, and announce the mixing of the colors, such as “red and blue make purple.” As such, the panel would be able to display the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Additionally, the teachers wanted the children to raise their arms above their heads to reach buttons to improve gross motor skills.  Because of this requirement, we knew we needed to be able to raise and lower the panel to variable heights to accommodate children of different ages. The RISE Center also wanted the panel to be able to be taken off the wall and placed flat on the floor for their children who are not yet sitting up. This led us to design an external mounting system that would interface with the panel, which is controlled via hand crank. The project is scheduled to finish up in the Fall of 2027, so stay updated on both our website and social media to keep track of the project's progress!

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Alabama Astrobotics Lab Tours

Every year, Alabama Astrobotics welcomes visitors from across the country to visit our lab on the University's campus. We ask each visitor to place a blue sticker on the map to mark their hometown. Each red sticker on the map marks our team members' hometowns.