What
16 River Hill High School computer science students will compete in Zero Robotics national contest finals programming actual robotic satellites that are on the International Space Station. Students watch via live downlink as competition is judged by astronauts aboard the ISS.
Who
River Hill High School computer science students and other finalists teams from across the US, Europe, Russia, Australia and their Computer Science teacher Anne Contney
 When
Monday, January 25, 2016.
 Where
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts (where the RHHS students will be), the Eurospace Centre, Belgium, and the Seymour Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia and Roscosmos, Russia.
 

On Monday 2016-Jan-25 over 400 High School students from around the world will join in fierce competition to claim the championship spot in the Zero Robotics High School Tournament 2015 (http://zerorobotics.mit.edu) as robotic satellites aboard the International Space Station race using the programs the students wrote. The finalists will watch a live downlink from space as astronauts supervise the robots
during the ISS Finals Event. After three months of competition via online simulations, fourteen international alliances will compete through several elimination matches to determine the Zero Robotics 2015 International Champion. Each alliance consists of three different teams of High School students that joined forces in November to write the best computer programs which will run on the SPHERES Satellites (http://ssl.mit.edu/spheres) aboard the International Space Station.

Students will travel either to MIT in Cambridge, MA (United States) the Eurospace Centre in Belgium, or the Seymour Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia in order to see their program tested aboard the ISS live, with direct transmission from space, as an astronaut operates the SPHERES Satellites that will run the students’
code. The locations will all be connected via teleconference.

Zero Robotics is a programming competition where students are presented with a challenge (“the game”). Two teams compete at a time to achieve the best performance in the game. The teams write all of their code via the Zero Robotics website, which has a high-fidelity simulation of the SPHERES satellites. Using the same website the students see simulated results of their code performance. The competition closely resembles the way software is written for spacecraft, requiring the students to write code that controls the satellite position and pointing, communicates with other satellites, and interprets its sensors to determine what to do next. All of these tasks are
done autonomously - once the students write their code, they cannot modify it for that “run”; in the case of the ISS Finals the code cannot be changed, just like in real spacecraft!

This year's game called spySPHERES presents the students with multiple challenges that are important in current space research and real missions: 1) collecting parts of a (virtual) broken satellite to re-use them; 2) taking (virtual) pictures of your opponent to learn more about them; and 3) orbiting the Earth, which means the satellite is
sometimes illuminated and other times in the dark. The competitors need (virtual) energy, collected while they are illuminated, in order to move and take pictures. In order to be victorious, they must collect as many parts as possible and take as many pictures as possible all while avoiding having pictures taken of them and managing limited
resources. The SPHERES satellites are used by MIT, NASA, DARPA and other researchers to test maneuvers for spacecraft performing autonomous rendezvous and docking. The three satellites fly inside the station's cabin autonomously, but under the supervision of an astronaut. Each is self-contained with power, propulsion, computing and navigation
equipment.

By making the benefits and resources of the space program tangible to high school students, Zero Robotics is designed to inspire future scientists and engineers. Students have the opportunity to push their limits and develop skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. This program helps students build critical
engineering skills, such as problem solving, design thought process, operations training, team work and presentation. The Zero Robotics High School Tournament 2015 is sponsored by NASA, CASIS, ESA and University of Sydney Australia and brought to you by the MIT Space Systems Laboratory and partners Innovation Learning Center and Aurora Flight Sciences.