The students in the NASA HUNCH Program work with mentors, college professors, national companies, engineers from NASA, and other organizations to help hone their ideas. In addition, each student is encouraged to include their work with NASA on their resume. The students' fresh perspective, time, and energy assists the Research and Integration Office out of the Johnson Space Center.
This year, the students worked to provide a preliminary design review in February. After this review, teams refine their ideas and have a critical design review. Critical Design Review typically takes place in New Jersey but was held remotely this year. The finalists are invited to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, to present to NASA and anyone interested.
The three teams of finalists include:
- Matt Gorton (Seekonk), John Greener (North Attleboro), Rick Hamilton (North Attleboro), Emily Anne Matheson (Medway), Tyler Fiore (North Attleboro), Shriya Sivakumar (Seekonk), Kyle Hughes (North Attleboro) created a No Heat Shield, allowing a package to reenter the atmosphere without burning up safely. In addition, this team was able to work with a local fire department to drop test their prototypes from the top of a fire truck ladder and got licensed as HAM radio operators to test their radio transmitter.
- Owen Fedele (Medway), Lucas Celeste (North Attleboro), Nolan Angliss (Franklin) designed a Lunar Food Bite Dispenser to allow astronauts to eat while on long spacewalks with ease. This trio was selected as finalists last year as well.
- Anthony Botteri (Medway), Max Rounds (Franklin), James Gingras (Millis), Brian Belanger (Plainville), Tyler McKinnon (Franklin) (with help from Elijah DePaolo (North Attleboro) and Eric Conway (Millis) collaborated on the Lunar Dust Baffle to help keep lunar soil on habitats to protect astronauts from radiation and micrometeorites. This team pulled together their various strengths and made an incredible impact.