Picture long hours of intense work, meetings and preparation, fueled by a passion for space exploration. This is exactly what Trinity students recently undertook, navigating their way to success in the Student Astronaut Challenge. Composed of 25 total teams from freshmen to seniors, this aerospace-related competition occurred from Feb. 3-5 with an initial qualifying exam as well as four challenges each consisting of varying objectives: design, engineering, landing and space-flight simulation.

   The design challenge included the creation of a mailbox that incorporated several space-themed elements as well as a 30-minute presentation. The landing challenge, on the other hand, focused on safely landing a simulated shuttle, while the space-flight simulation challenge involved the team running through a checklist of procedures. Lastly, the engineering challenge, in which Trinity received the third-place award, required teams to control a blind rover on Mars and collect minerals of the most value.

   “The Student Astronaut Challenge … [is] meant to test problem-solving and group work,” team coach and science teacher Michelle Chicas said. “Those are things that are emphasized in all of the challenges. Teams that work well together typically will do better on a lot of the challenges.”

   This focus on collaboration and teamwork proved essential as the team faced various unexpected obstacles both during preparation and throughout the challenges, including their lack of experience and dissatisfaction with the mailbox design, prompting a collective effort to rebuild it.

   “When you’re a new team like this, you need people that are willing to really try and make mistakes, because that’s how we learn,” senior and team member Nicholas Saraiva said. “No one was really shy about anything [and] we were all very upfront with our ideas.”

   This willingness to be open-minded and collaborative, however, was not simply an inherent skill between the team members. Rather, it was a direct result of team bonding and spending time together.

   “Really getting to know someone helps,” Saraiva said. “We spent a lot of time together with each other before the competition, so I think that’s a good thing for a team.”

   This team bonding stemmed from countless hours of preparation for challenges requiring hands-on skills and muscle memory, with the team also adapting to their circumstances due to limited resources.

   “The biggest challenge was that we didn’t have all of the technical hardware we needed, so we practiced at The Geneva School where they have a more complete setup of the simulator,” Chicas said. “It’s not on campus here, so it was harder for us to practice more like the real thing as opposed to just the paper version.”

   Understanding the intricacies of the competition was something that the newly established Trinity team was also challenged with. Although they qualified for the upper league through the qualifying exam, they were advised to compete in the lower league due to the unwritten rules and guidelines embedded in the competition.

   “There are a lot of things that, if you just follow the base instructions, you’re not even going to place,” Chicas said. “There are a lot of unwritten things that you only learn once you’ve competed there.”

   Despite this obstacle, the team remained resilient and excelled in the engineering challenge, which participants were unaware of preceding the convention.

   “In the other challenges, we didn’t score as well because a lot of them are routine [and] every other team knows about it,” Saraiva said. “Because we’re the new guys, we can’t be as competitive because we don’t know the ins and outs of everything yet. [The engineering challenge] shows raw intelligence and strength and I think that’s where it shows how strong our team really is.”

   Their success at this year’s Student Astronaut Challenge is a testament to their hard work as well as a bright future for next year.

   “[Our win] really gives me a lot of pride because it shows that we know how to execute together and have a lot of good chemistry,” Saraiva said. “It makes me excited and hopeful for my future because I know that, if I can find a good team and people that I have good synergy with, I can really do a lot.”