5. THE STORY
The Florida Department of Education wanted to increase student interest
and outcomes in Four Key Categories:
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (Referred to as STEM)
6. THE STORY
As many education departments do, they developed a Grant and
solicited participation from area schools.
The Prize: $10,000
7. THE STORY
In 2010, FDOE awarded the grant of $10,000 to Florida State
University Schools (Florida High) to build their concept of a Space
Shuttle Simulator.
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8. THE STORY
Florida State University Schools partners
with the Challenger Learning Center
(Tallahassee) as the model to frame and
build their Space Shuttle Simulator.
9. THE STORY
Coaxis International provided pro-bono software
programming and helps to build the actual “rolling”
Space Shuttle Simulator.
10. THE STORY
FDOE sees the final product and is so
impressed they make plans to roll it
out as a statewide initiative in 2011…
The “Astronaut Challenge” is born!
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11. THE STORY
FDOE approaches Walt Disney World to see if they are interested in
supporting the statewide “Astronaut Challenge.”
Disney’s response: “Yes. We’re the largest employer of engineers in
Florida, this is perfect!”
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12. THE STORY
FDOE announces the “Astronaut Challenge” as a statewide competition.
Schools throughout the state thrust their best and brightest at the challenge, and
the top seven teams are invited to compete at the finals in Tallahassee.
17. THE STORY
15 schools from south and central Florida
This year 38 teams representing 30 schools
from south, central and northern Florida competed at Regionals.
18. THE STORY
Figure 1: Simplified control bus layout. This is a closed loop because the return path is through vehicle ground (not shown
in diagram).
PNL=Panel
RPC =Remote Power Controller
SNSR = Sensor
