Asteroid Mining? Local Middle School Students Already Have a Plan

As companies around the world are making plans for the eventual mining of precious metals and raw materials from asteroids, middle school students at Ring Mountain Day School in Mill Valley are already ahead of the game. Beginning in March, as a part of their study of physics, RMDS 5th-8th grade students worked on a version of the classic egg-drop experiment by creating protective containers that would allow an egg to be thrown against a brick wall without breaking.  As a culmination of their physics unit, their science teacher, Lindsay Dunn, signed them up for the Museum of Tcch and Innovation's annual Tech Challenge in San Jose.

This year's challenge was to simulate building and launching senstitive mining equipment onto an asteroid. Students would have to build a device for launching the equipment (simulated by an egg) while making sure the equipment was protected from breaking when it landed.

With the help of their teacher, Ms. Dunn, and wonderful parent volunteers, small groups of students spent weeks designing, building, testing and redesigning their projects. One parent even helped build a replica of the landing site as it would look at the Tech Challenge. The students didn't stop there. When asked about the reality of mining asteroids, it was clear that they were considering the implications of landing heavy equipment on asteroids or removing large chunks of rock.  Alan Levinson, a 5th grader whose group used soy nut butter to protect their egg, said "I'm concerned about the asteroid being thrown off it's orbit, or asteroids colliding.

All the planning and hard work culminated in the groups gathering at the Tech Museum this past Saturday to answer questions about and demonstrate their designs. One of the 5th grade groups, the Green Dragons, left with a Judge's Choice award, and all of the groups left feeling proud of their creativity and collaboration.