2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge Winners

Three teams from Minerva University's Class of 2028—Aliens, Silkroad, and Blue Skies—took top honors in NASA’s 2024 International Space Apps Challenge, Mountain View chapter. This annual hackathon, held in various locations around the globe, invites participants from diverse backgrounds to tackle real-world challenges using open data and technology. Teams work collaboratively to develop innovative solutions that address pressing problems affecting Earth and space life. The challenge fosters creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking, encouraging participants to push the boundaries of what’s possible in science, engineering, and social impact. Select teams from every chapter qualify for global judging, so here are the three global finalist teams from Minerva!

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First Place: Team Aliens

Team Aliens was formed through a combination of chance encounters and similar interests. With some members joining just days before the event, they collectively called themselves “100% Aliens” as a nod to their status as international students in the U.S. 

Team Aliens developed an interdisciplinary and adaptive curriculum aimed at teaching visually impaired students about exoplanets through an immersive, multi-sensory experience. This project addresses the challenge of making exoplanet education inclusive for the visually impaired community, particularly those with limited resources. By creating an open-source, offline curriculum, the team reduces reliance on technology and ensures that facilitators can easily integrate the materials into their existing programs.

After exploring various ideas—from apps and websites to tactile crafts and specialized learning environments—the team concluded that an open-source curriculum would be the most accessible and impactful solution. This interdisciplinary approach is imperative, as current resources for teaching exoplanet science are either unavailable or inaccessible to the target audience of the project. By emphasizing multisensory engagement without heavily relying on technology, the curriculum is designed to be widely implementable, integrating core subjects with adaptive skills to ensure the content is both educational and practical.

This approach allowed them to focus on multisensory engagement without relying heavily on technology, making it widely implementable. By developing an interdisciplinary and adaptive curriculum, they integrated core subjects with adaptive skills, ensuring the content was educational and practical for their target audience.

Reflecting on their win, the team expressed gratitude for the hackathon’s emphasis on social impact and community-building, which had been their primary focus throughout the competition.

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Fourth Place: Team Blue Skies 

Emerging from concern for environmental sustainability, Blue Skies focused on an often overlooked issue: the climate impact of airplane contrails. Contrails contribute more to atmospheric warming than carbon emissions, so the team aimed to create awareness and solutions that could influence the aviation industry. The team was determined to address this challenge creatively and effectively, opting for a “make-your-own” approach that strayed from traditional categories.

The team’s project, an app, showcases how adjusting flight paths can minimize the formation of warming contrails while maximizing cooling ones. To achieve this, the team collaborated with researchers and integrated real-time contrail prediction data, which provided a solid foundation for their solution. The app demonstrated the science behind contrails and made the information accessible and visually engaging for users. This unique combination of technical analysis and user-friendly design captured the judges’ attention, leading to their impressive fourth-place finish.

Throughout the hackathon, Team Blue Skies faced a significant challenge when they opted for the make-your-own challenge, which meant they would not be eligible for global judging. This choice was cultivated due to the desire to create the most optimal solution possible which couldn’t occur if they constrained themselves and their project into one of the given categories of the hackathon. However, their hard work and innovative approach ultimately paid off, allowing them to advance to the finals despite their initial ineligibility and be judged globally. 

The team leveraged their myriad of skills to ensure the app was both informative and engaging, therefore demonstrating that effective communication is imperative to raising awareness about environmental issues. 

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Reflecting on the Hackathon Journey

The experience highlighted the importance of teamwork and diverse perspectives. The most rewarding moment for Aliens was: “when we put our strengths together into a single piece of work and presented it to the audience. Instead of being a group of programmers, we came together with different strengths and roles: coding, web designing, and presentation. It was great to see how our unique contributions and cooperation developed into a beautiful website and an engaging 6-minute presentation.”

Team Blue Skies emphasized the value of confidence and quality, pushing through obstacles without compromising their vision. The hackathon reinforced the idea that these events are not just about winning but also about learning and creating meaningful solutions throughout the experience.

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Future Visions and Advice for Space Apps Participants

The teams hope to carry their projects beyond the hackathon. Aliens wants to expand educational opportunities in space science, while Blue Skies aims to raise awareness about contrail management’s importance for the environment. Their advice for future participants is straightforward: “You have to work on something you really like. Results from a hackathon don’t matter in the grand scheme of what you can learn and create!” 

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