On Friday May 6th, students participating in the GDST Space Technology Programme from Oxford High School, as well as Sutton High School and Sheffield High School, congregated at GDST Trust Office in Westminster for their inaugural end of year student conference.
Following a year’s attendance to academic sessions, the students presented their outcomes from exploring space science requirements and Python-based programming projects focusing on NASA Earth data correlation and analysis, physical motion sensor pattern classification and remote environmental sensor and imager data collection for AI processing. A guest panel made up of space industry professionals, who at different stages during the year had delivered resources and online presentations to the group, attended to offer feedback on pre-completed projects submitted ahead of time by the students and also on additional work set by them to be completed during two activity sessions earlier that morning. On the panel was Elizabeth Joyner of Earth Science Data Systems out of NASA HQ, Dr Bradley Hegyi and Angela Rizzi of My NASA Data (NASA Langley Research Center), Dr Kevin Czajkowski of NASA GLOBE Mission Earth (University of Toledo) and Dr Jin Kang, Director of the US Naval Academy Small Satellite Program and co-developer at Maru Space Technology for the student A3Sat Initiative.
The final, interactive conference panel session with students proved constructive towards further planning for the next year’s revised GDST Space Technology Programme curriculum. Suggestions were explored for onward collaborative efforts, toward finding algorithmic solutions around data collection inaccuracies due to fluctuating environmental conditions, and also research towards potential sensor device innovations to overcome environmental impacts on future planetary observation readings. Participating students received certificates in a final presentation at the end of the conference.
