Student Teams Join Forces with NASA to Engineer Wearable Technologies

With the WEAR STEM Challenge, commonly known as WEAR, on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, student teams nationwide are perfecting their designs for cutting-edge wearable technology to compete in the second round once it resumes.

While Fiscal Year 2019 (FY2019) challenged students to design vests to protect the blood forming organs during a space weather storm, the FY2020 challenge gives teams two options. This year, middle- and high-school teams could choose to design headgear to protect against high-energy radiation during a solar-particle event, or design a multipurpose garment to help mitigate radiation exposure. All nascent designs, no matter which option was selected by the school, will prove eminently useful to the space agency as it navigates a future that includes destinations to the Moon — and beyond.

Top and bottom: The pandemic hasn't slowed these creative thinkers. Virtually, NASA is working with student teams to perfect wearable technology designs that will help protect astronauts venturing deeper into space.

Protecting crews has always been job number one for NASA, but the danger increases as explorers venture deeper into space. WEAR answers the challenge by focusing on wearables for crew members that aid in tasks like monitoring conditions, protecting organs, and collecting data. Once beyond the Earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetosphere, crews may be exposed to the high-energy charged particles of galactic cosmic rays and solar-particle events, as well as secondary protons and neutrons. And while spacecraft offer a degree of protection, wearable technologies, in tandem, can offer even more shielding. The RadWorks team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and NASA’s Langley Research Center are leaders in this research and will shepherd the final, selected designs.

During the FY2020 WEAR STEM Challenge, students are perfecting headgear designs that NASA engineers will evaluate during the second round.

Experts at Johnson and Langley are particularly interested in ideas from students for wearable technologies with extra functionality, which can lead to increased mission duration for crews. In return, all student teams will leave the challenge with the invaluable experience of having worked directly with NASA engineering teams to develop real prototypes using practical, on-the-job STEM and engineering concepts. What the Artemis Generation learns about human factors and design elements during WEAR can be used for their future studies and, potentially, productive careers at NASA or elsewhere.

As Katy Gazda, lead educator of Red Mountain Biotech and team Vita Protegat, noted, “The Wear Challenge has established a confidence in my students that is unmatched. These teenagers have skills and ideas that are remarkable, but they readily question if their work has worth. The fact that NASA, a leader in STEM and innovation, is interested in what they are doing validates their ability to produce authentic solutions to real-world problems. It is this confidence boost that is likely to steer these brilliant, enthusiastic young minds into the critical STEM careers of our future.”

But perhaps even best of all, WEAR shows the Artemis Generation that no, really — they will need those STEM concepts they’re learning about in class one day.

“This challenge taught me how things we usually think are useless can actually help you in real life,” one student participant said. “For example, I used geometry and formulas I never thought I would use to find dimensions and how much material would be needed for the helmet. And, finally, I learned that real life isn’t like a test, where only one answer is available. Sometimes, problems can have many solutions.”

Ingenuity in action as students work with their wearable technology prototypes.

NASA is excited to see the multitude of concepts that these school teams will put forth. Having so much attention concentrated on solving common exploration dilemmas will only strengthen the technologies that do emerge because of WEAR.

“They probably won’t use the exact design each team comes up with, but they are really looking for ideas,” said mentor and co-leader Eric Moser from the Mankato, Minnesota, school team, “and they often find a wealth of ideas coming from young minds with neat ideas to share.”

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