By Ben Karl High School Students Honored by Pete Conrad Foundation
Final Frontier Apparel, winners in the personal spaceflight category, prepare their video presenation for the competition.
This past week we were fortunate enough to work with the Pete Conrad Foundation in promoting the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards, a competition for high school students to design the products of the future, facilitating commercial success in either of three categories: personal spaceflight, lunar exploration or renewable energy. The finalist teams all came up with some extremely fascinating projects including, a stationary bike that charges your electrical devices while you ride, a mechanical counter-pressure space suit that keeps an astronaut’s muscles, bones, blood vessels and nerve cells in top condition and a bioreactor that uses hydrogen cells and genetically modified bacteria to generate electricity. Wow!
It was truly a pleasure helping the Conrad Foundation give these students the recognition they deserve. The guidance they recieve from the advisors on the Conrad Foundation’s Advisory Board will be invaluable to them as they grow into careers of their own. For us, it’s all about promoting the stories of these hard-working students that take time out of their schedule to tackle real-world problems head on. These students are an example to all of us that the challenges our future brings will not be easy, but with dedication, and the support of organizations like the Conrad Foundation, we will find success. For more information about the Conrad Foundation and the winners of the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards, visit their homepage: www.conradawards.org.
