NSTEM is Reaching New Heights

On September 8th, members of NSTEM attended a workshop at Saint Francis University’s Curry Innovation Center in Altoona. There students worked to create their own satellite. As a school ranked in the top 20% of STEM schools in the country, Grier is building a new generation of women in STEM fields. This is an important pursuit since currently only around 26% of STEM careers in the United States belong to women. Programs like NSTEM, the Grier School chapter of the National Honor Society for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, are key to this cause. The chance to build, code, and launch cube satellites, or cubesats, through Saint Francis is one of the many opportunities that NSTEM offers to its members. 

The workshop attended in September is the second in a series of three workshops in which students will work on different aspects of the satellite. The series of workshops is funded by a grant and hosted by Saint Francis professor, Timothy Miller, PhD, PE. It is an honor for our students to participate in this series since only three schools were chosen throughout the local Hollidaysburg and Altoona Area High Schools

Professor Miller will conclude the workshop series in the spring, when he will assist Grier’s students in launching the cubesats here at Grier. The students will launch their satellites using a large balloon as a carrier. The satellites are smaller than one would expect. At about four inches tall, the small 3-D printed frames pack a lot of abilities into a tiny cube. The cubes house arduino boards, which the students themselves programmed to collect atmospheric data like humidity and oxygen levels. The balloon will rise and descend through the atmosphere, after which the students will use the GPS system circuited to the arduino board to track the balloon’s descent, thus collecting the data. “They are super cool because they go high enough in the stratosphere to allow us to see the curvature of the Earth,” said NSTEM member and Grier junior, Pia Rock.

Students like Josie Filan, ‘26, enjoyed unique techniques learned during the building process like soldering the wires attached to the circuit board. “I loved soldering,” Filan said. “I’d never done it before.” 

With the next workshop occurring on October 6th, Dr. Burke, Science Department Head and NSTEM sponsor, is excited about how quickly her students picked up the new information and techniques. The activity “encompasses many skills in terms of STEM education,” she said. With specialties like engineering, coding, atmospheric, and environmental sciences being highlighted, it is safe to say that our Grier students are learning so much. We can’t wait to see the results of their hard work.