ZeroRobotics 2023 Middle School ISS Final FIRST Place Winners Technical Presentation

Presenters -  Arusha Bhargava, Dennis Reznik,  Maya Baireddy,  and Vedaang Verma - all 8th Graders who have attended Storming Robots for a few years learning computer science and robotics.

On August 3rd,  one of the most out-of-the-world inspirational events took place on the International Station, where even a middle schooler can participate in the Satellite programming competition – ZeroRobotics. What makes this competition so unique is that students’ programs are uploaded into a Satellite, competed up on the International Space Station, and refereed by astronauts via LIVE Stream.  
Congratulations on an amazing ISS Finals for Zero Robotics!  It was great hearing Astronaut Woody call out all of the middle school team names and watching  teams’ alliance code run on the International Space Station.

A Middle School team from a Branchburg/Bridgewater based Robotics and advanced Computer Science Learning lab called Storming Robots won the FIRST Place on the ISS Final, August 3rd.  
The Storming Robots team consisted of 20 members from Hunterdon,  Somerset and Monmouth County.

Zero Robotics is a computer programming competition. It consists of two divisions – High School and Middle School Divisions. The high school division has been on hold since 2020.   This is the first year Storming Robots team participated in the ZeroRobotics Middle School division competing against teams across the country.

The programming environment is in simulation mode and entirely web-based. In the 2023 Summer Competition, teams were tasked to collect lunar samples from unpredictable sites and transport them back to the space station.   Students had to create an algorithm to find optimal path to maximize the collection of lunar dust, but minimize the power usage within the shortest time.  

Storming Robots' team programmed in C computer language compared to most other teams using Blockly programming language. “Although deemed difficult, C is a powerful and fast programming language that is the backbone of modern computing systems. Be able to be proficient in C, students are empowered to adapt to many other programming languages and   problem solving with more sophisticated techiques", said Elizabeth Mabrey, the director of Storming Robots. Elizabeth was among the 155 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program's Distinguished Teachers Award recipients in 2019.  

"ZeroRobotics is truly an exceptionally inspirational event for youngsters to pursue their interests in science and engineering!  Students are ecstatic to have the opportunity of having their codes running in Space!”, added Elizabeth.

“Students are assisting NASA and MIT with ACTUAL RESEARCH” , from the MIT/NASA ZeroRobotics Coordinator Kathleen Magrane.

Zero Robotics 2023 is provided through a partnership between the MIT Space Enabled Research Group, the Innovation Learning Center, the Aerospace Corporation, the ISS National Laboratory, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, (NASA), National Science Foundation, STEMX365, and Aurora Flight Science: a Boeing Company.

Storming Robots is a year-round robotics and advanced computer science learning center for Grades 5 to 12. It has proven its programs’ effectiveness through its long-term students’ success – from impressive independent projects to top college acceptance, top placements in world-level robotics competitions.