Katherine Gardiner and Lee Brown

Gardiner’s and Brown's innovative teaching idea, “Maximizing Our Mars Rover Reach,” has students collaborating in teams using the engineering design process to build a model Rover from Legos with a functioning rock collector. In recent years, the 6th grade classrooms have been given an additional challenge of programming the Rover to function autonomously. Within the existing Mars Rover competition there are multiple events like hill climb, blind drive, rock collection and speed course. According to the teaching duo, it is a well-loved project in middle school that students anticipate each year. The Voya grant will be used to purchase additional motors, controllers and hubs, and building duplicate Martian landscapes to maximize the academy’s Mars Rover reach.