Local team who advanced to final round of NASA TI Codes National Contest needs your help

Alayna Nguyen and Jonathan Ngoy, two high schools students from the Chicago area, have been working on a project over the past few months to create a robot, the Germaphobe, for the national 2020 NASA TI Codes Contest. The contest challenged their team to improve a process or create an innovative product for the International Space Station. Their team has advanced to the fifth and final round of the competition.

Their robot, the Germaphobe, is a free-flying sanitation robot that uses UV lights to keep the International Space Station clean, allowing astronauts to spend their time on research and essential operations instead of cleaning the ISS!

A public vote will decide the winning team. Voting begins September 1 at 9 am CT on the contest webpage (tinyurl.com/votegermaphobe) and lasts through 11:59 am CT on Monday, September 14. The top team, determined by the number of votes, receive TI Rovers, TI Innovator Hubs that allow students to create their own robotics projects, and an opportunity to visit the NASA Johnson Space Center.

By participating in this challenge, each team member has gained invaluable experience in electronics, programming, and project design that we will bring back to our schools. If their team wins the grand prize, they will donate the TI Rovers and Innovator Hubs to the five high schools their team members are enrolled in. By providing TI technology to their schools, they hope to establish hands-on STEM learning opportunities for students. They will also create an informative video series about their project and TI Technology to share with their schools and communities.

Our team has documented our build journey on our Instagram (@the.germaphobes), Facebook (@the.germaphobes), and Twitter (@thegermaphobes). Please feel free to follow us on these accounts to stay updated with our future projects!