NCSSM Rocketry team participates in NASA Student Launch competition

April 14, 2018:

Over spring break, students from the NCSSM Rocketry Team traveled to Huntsville, Alabama, for the NASA Student Launch competition. Throughout the year, the team submitted reports to NASA detailing all aspects of their project and had regular teleconferences to keep them updated on their progress. By the time the team was ready to make the trip to Huntsville, the rocket proudly dubbed Gemini (along with sub-scale rocket Ge-mini), a Parachute Release System, and a Landing Site Estimation System had been designed, constructed, programmed, tested, and honed for competition. In addition, three students spoke to nearly 2,000 people at the team's outreach event in Astronomy Days 2018 at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. While in Huntsville, students toured the Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, and successfully launched on Sunday, April 8, 2018. A video of the launch and an interview with NASA can be seen on the NASA Student Launch Facebook page. The team would like to thank their faculty sponsor Dr. Joe Lobuglio, their mentor Mr. Dave Morey, and all of their sponsors, especially the NCSSM Foundation, the Bowman-Brockman Endowment, and the Sethi Family.

Pictured above: The NCSSM Rocketry Team having dinner under a Saturn V rocketry at the banquet. From left, Sahil Sethi (Safety Officer Extraordinaire), Alex Stewart and Jackson Fernandez (Parachute Release System specialists), Caleb Keaveney (Rocket Lead), Aidan Keaveney (Director of Communications and Outreach, Rocket Specialist), Anja Sheppard (Landing Site Estimator Specialist, Captain), and Wesley Block and Myers Harbinson (Captains).

-From The Daily Unicorn

​Students visit D.C. to present winning app, meet NC representatives

April 12-13, 2018:

On Thursday, April 12, and Friday April 13, Vibhu Ambil and Aneesha Manocha attended the #HouseOfCode event in Washington, D.C. The students, along with Abhijit Gupta and Anja Sheppard, were invited to the two-day event for developing the winning mobile app for North Carolina's 4th Congressional district in the Congressional App Challenge. Their mobile app, Food for Thought, helps reduce food waste by reminding users of upcoming food expiration dates and connecting users to local food banks. The students demonstrated their mobile app to Representative David E. Price and members of the technology community at the event, as well as to Senator Thom Tillis in a personal meeting in his office. The students also attended breakout sessions on various topics, including cryptology, artificial intelligence, and patent protection. The students, along with Cheryl Gann and Keethan Kleiner, left for Washington, D.C. Wednesday evening and returned Saturday evening.

-From The Daily Unicorn

April 8, 2018:

Congratulations to the The Zebracorns - FRC Team 900 robotics team for their performance in this weekend's North Carolina State Championship, held at Campbell University! The team made it to the quarterfinal round, and won the Industrial Design Award. Great job, team!

-Zebracorns - FRC Team 900

NCSSM NSBE Jr. Chapter wins awards at National Convention

March 21-25, 2018:

Congratulations to the NCSSM NSBE Jr. Chapter for winning several awards at the 44th NSBE National Convention in Pittsburgh, PA this past week. The team won the following awards:

2nd Place Overall - Try-Math-a-Lon(TMAL): Team (Wes Block, Nia Brown, Emile Charles, Anire Egbe, Rakeem Yakubu)

3rd Place Overall - Technical Innovations Research Competition: Javier Scott

1st Place Best Oral Presentation - Technical Innovations Research Competition: Javier Scott

The students showed not only academic excellence, but incredible attitudes and teamwork.

Congratulations to the entire NSBE Jr. Team, and their outstanding officers, led by President, Carrington Rodgers.

-Letitia Hubbard

Zebracorns win Creativity Award at UNC Pembroke District Event

March 17, 2018:

Congratulations to The Zebracorns - FRC Team 900 for making it into the semifinals and winning the Creativity Award, sponsored by Xerox, at the UNCPembroke District Event this past weekend!

-Zebracorns - FRC Team 900

Zebracorns win judges award at regional event

March 3, 2018: Congratulations to The Zebracorns Robotics team for winning the Judge's Award at the Palmetto Regional Event! The Palmetto Regional Event is a three-day competition sponsored by FIRST Robotics where students from high schools across the world demonstrate the capabilities of their robots. This year's competition was held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Shared the team, "Although our robot experienced some technical difficulties during the Palmetto Regional Event, we were able to take massive leaps in terms of progressing our design and functionality." Great job, Zebracorns!!

-From The Daily Unicorn

Engineering Class Visits Construction Site of Downtown High Rise

November 1, 2016: The Engineering Architecture class took a trip to downtown Durham to visit the site of One City Center, a new commercial high-rise that is currently being built. For their final projects, the students are using a Revit model of downtown to place and build their construction. This trip to downtown Durham let them see that space in person, understand the context of where their designed buildings will go, and understand the architectural history of that space. This is the third trimester that the Architecture class has made this trip.

-John Kirk

Engineering Professor Teaches Computation and Visualization to Maryland High School Teachers

September 23-25 2016: Garrett Love visited the campus of the University of Maryland Baltimore County to work with teachers as part of NSF grant "CompHydro: Integrating Data Computation and Visualization to Build Model-based Water Literacy". Garrett worked with nine teachers from area schools, presenting classroom activities and models designed to introduce computational modeling in the context of flooding. Activities included hands on investigations such as the tarp topology pictured below, algorithmic simulations like the floor-tile watershed also pictured, and work with NetLogo models that Garrett and other modelers have created as part of the program curricula. Teachers in the program will be working with researchers at the UMBC, Colorado State, Univ of Arizona, Univ of Montana, the Cary Institute and the Shodor Education Foundation to investigate methods for integrating 'computational thinking' in classrooms at each site.

NCSSM Students spend summer at the MIT Beaver Works Autonomous Robotics BootCamp

Summer 2016: This past summer, seniors Adithya Balaji and Silvia Knappe represented NCSSM at the MIT Beaver Works Autonomous Robotics Bootcamp. They spent four weeks in the MIT's AeroAstro laboratory, developing autonomous racecars alongside students from other NCSSS (National Consortium of Specialized STEM Schools) schools and local Boston schools.

Silvia called the program “… definitely my best summer yet, not only because I got to explore a new place and make new friends, but because of the technical knowledge I gained and the lessons I learned about engineering and programming.” Adithya highlighted that “Our technical lecturers include engineers from NASA JPL who had worked on the Curiosity mission, engineers from Continental who work on autonomous systems for car manufacturers, and various MIT professors who are leaders in their fields.”

To read more about the program: http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2016/08/06/watch-mits-first-ever-grand-prix-of-self-driving-cars-video/