Credits: ESA/Education
Ready to run a scientific experiment in space? The European Astro Pi Challenge is back and better than ever, with a renewed website, cool new key visuals, and more inclusive entry criteria!
Run by ESA in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Astro Pi gives young people the opportunity to write computer programs and run them on the two Raspberry Pi computers, Ed and Izzy, on the ISS. It is for partecipants up to 19 years old.
The European Astro Pi Challenge 2020-21 is made up of two levels: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.
Mission Zero is designed for beginners/younger participants up to 14 years old. Consisting of writing a simple program to take a humidity reading on board the ISS and communicate it to the astronauts with a personalised message, Mission Zero can be completed in a single session of around an hour and doesn’t require any previous coding experience or special hardware. It’s a perfect activity for coding clubs or groups of students who are beginners to programming and digital making, and all participants who follow the challenge rules are guaranteed to have their programs run in 2021.
Mission Space Lab is aimed at more experienced/older participants up to 19 years old, and it takes place in 4 phases over the course of 8 months. The challenge is to design and write a program for a scientific experiment that enhances our understanding of either Life on Earth or Life in Space. The best experiments will be deployed to the ISS, and teams will have the opportunity to analyse and report on their results.