Poquoson students design prototypes for NASA HUNCH program

When problems arise on the International Space Station, the world’s leading scientists and engineers sometimes turn to high school classrooms for solutions.

Students aren’t taking on the big-picture issues that the station might be facing, but they get the chance to develop novel ideas that make life a little easier for astronauts in space.

At Poquoson High School, Ellen Fiscella’s engineering classes are taking on five of the six space station challenges offered by the HUNCH — High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware — program.

Superintendent Jennifer Parish said Poquoson High School is the only school in Virginia taking on all six challenges — and nutrition and wellness students are creating food items for HUNCH’s culinary challenge. Parish said that last year, all six designs produced at the school went on to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for testing.

HUNCH partners students with NASA research centers to tackle different problems each year. The challenges often come from astronauts aboard the space station, according to the HUNCH website, and the program lets students test their engineering and problem-solving skills.

In Fiscella’s introductory engineering class, Carlos Velez tinkered with a design that mimicked how a pair of pliers would be used to pinch a wire and applied that concept to crushing a can — crushing a can efficiently is one of the design challenges HUNCH asked students to tackle.

Nearby, Morgan Lowe sanded down 3-D-printed parts for his can-crushing device. With the mindset of being as compact as possible, he opted for a top that could be twisted down to apply crushing force.

The class is largely project-based, giving students freedom to design, build and collaborate. Fiscella, who worked for years as an architect and lighting engineer before teaching, didn’t spend any time lecturing on Thursday morning. Instead, she hopped from project to project to offer feedback as necessary.

She said the class was about at a midway point on their projects and getting ready to test their prototypes. Next week, they’ll take their work to NASA Langley and present it before getting feedback from a HUNCH panel, NASA engineers and International Space Station astronauts. About 150 schools in 26 states participate in the challenge each year.

Students Johnathon Shannon, William Chapman and Ian Burress have participated in HUNCH for at least two years, previously building toilet paper dispensers and a rodent cage. This year, they teamed up to build a bi-fold kit that held tools, constructing it with foam, cheese cloth borrowed from art class and, for now, lots of hot glue.

As Burress and Shannon sawed a block of green foam, Chapman said he’d taken technology classes since middle school and liked the real-world element of the HUNCH project and the hands-on aspect.

For his group’s shower kit, Raiden Doernte planned to design a clamp to hold wet towels on a drying rack — basically a sturdier, more efficient clothes pin.

“We thought about Velcro, but you don’t want to scratch yourself when you use the towel,” he said.

Fiscella’s advanced engineering class also worked on HUNCH projects Thursday. One group built a foot restraint so an astronaut taking photos from the station’s viewing cupola could be stable and not floating around, while another group created the coding for a calendar app.

Colin Parker said no one in his group had much coding or software experience. They wanted to try the app challenge, however, after someone from NASA told the class that they really needed an improved calendar system.

The group said learning to code as they went was harder than they thought it would be — the app has to be responsive so people can update the calendars and has to work on a tablet — but they have been able to build on a template and then customize it.

Travis Redman sawed and sanded hard foam that would represent a track for the foot restraint. He used a roller skate boot with its wheels removed to represent the actual foot harness.

The activity occurring in class leading up to the presentations next week was typical, Fiscella said, adding that she doesn’t need to do much to get them going.

“They come in ready and excited to work” she said. “They know what they’re doing.”

Reyes can be reached by phone at 757-247-4692. Follow him on Twitter @jdauzreyes.

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