At Nasa for five days

The all-girl team which visited Nasa. — Supplied photo For Zeinab Al Sheikali, learning how to work within her team’s budget and buy parts to build the Mars rover, lander and rocket is a difficult task, especially since the 14-year-old Emirati girl is only in Grade 10 and not a space scientist or Nasa engineer, for that matter.Yet, this is exactly what she and 21 other girls from the Applied Technology High School (ATHS) of the Institute of Applied Technology (IAT) in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, were trained for at Nasa’s Houston Space Centre last month. The students, aged between 12 and 18, comprise the UAE’s first ever all-female team and the first batch from IAT to successfully complete the on-site space training at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) which was organised and coordinated by Space Ed-Ventures — a locally based educational platform and the region’s only space exploration programme. The five-day programme saw the Emirati girls divided into five groups and fulfil three major tasks — design and construct a rover for Mars exploration; design and construct a lander which would bring the rover safely down to Mars; and a rocket that would bring both the lander and rover to the red planet. “They were given general instructions and they have to apply what they learned at IAT such as physics and math. They only had a day in each task and they have to test them on the fourth day,” said Muna Al Shaikh, Math teacher at ATHS: “A task each team managed to complete within the deadline.” “They went in the Nasa lab and all rockets flew and the rovers worked,” she commended proudly. “The education people from Nasa were very impressed with the quality of the work and presentation by the girls,” added Al Shaikh, who is also one of the three teachers who accompanied the students on the US trip. For Aisha Hussain Al Hammadi, 15, building the rocket prototype was the hardest of the tasks. “But the most exciting part was launching the rocket,” said the Grade 10 student who was so affected by her experience that she now intends to take up environmental engineering. After her group’s success in making their prototypes work, Zeinab has also expressed interest in working with Nasa in future. Group leader Ahood Al Hashimi, 16, said their attempt at landing the rover (eggs in lieu of the actual prototype) from the third floor to the ground level was unsuccessful and lost them $190 million, a good chunk off their fictional budget. “It was a competition and our first try was not successful. Unfortunately, we cannot try again because when you go to space, there is no second chance,” she explained. In addition to space simulations and getting hands-on experience on the obstacles astronauts face on a regular basis, the students learned how to collect rock samples and analyse them, how space shuttles are built and felt what it’s like living in space. They were also shown the astronaut training centres, a mission control room, and prepping stations.