Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Pamela Gay (astronomycast.com / cosmoquest.org / @starstryder)
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)
This week’s guest Paul MacNeal, a mechanical systems engineer at JPL, created the Annual Invention Challenge twenty-one years ago after helping his son with an extra credit assignment. Since then, teams of high school students from around the world compete each year against JPL engineers to see who can design and build the smartest and most efficient machine. The objective of the 2018 Challenge, which took place on Friday, December 14th, was to “to get a 24-inch length of two-inch PVC pipe from a horizontal position to an upright position on a platform using whatever device they could come up with, instructions not included.”
To view the 2018 results – as well as those from the prior 20 challenges – visit the Invention Challenge website at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/inventionchallenge/
Announcements:
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The All Stars Party, featuring Dr. Paul Sutter, Fraser Cain, Dr. Pamela Gay, John Michael Godier and Skylias, will be in Joshua Tree National Park this June – information is here at astrotours.co/allstars.
If you’d like to join Dr. Paul Sutter and Dr. Pamela Gay on their Cosmic Stories in the SouthWest Tour in August 2019, you can find the information at astrotours.co/southwest.
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The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest.
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