Over the past two summers, the PVL has run a youth outreach event at the Ontario Science Centre as part of our work with the Government of Ontario's Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science (now part of the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade). Leading the charge has been PhD Candidate, Charissa Campbell. Today we make those materials broadly available, as we had previously done with the associated board game.
By Charissa Campbell
Every summer our research group demonstrates the Rover Exploration Challenge at the Ontario Science Centre. Over the course of a day, participants plan observations for a simulated rover to achieve certain goals for their respective science group. With the plentiful experience in mission operations within our lab we were able to successfully create this outreach program to educate anyone on the true conditions needed to maintain and do science with a rover on another planet.
A new opportunity rose this year for the Challenge when we were invited to showcase it at the Space Educators Institute (SEI) at Western University. SEI educates Ontario science teachers on astronomy related topics. This was the perfect opportunity for us to take our Challenge further and apply it in classrooms. We were able to modify the program so teachers could take the Challenge back to the class and educate their students on rover mission operations. Since this package has been set-up to be shared easily, we wanted to try to extend the offer to anyone that is interested. This blog post will explain how you could run the Rover Exploration Challenge for friends, families or in a classroom.
A new opportunity rose this year for the Challenge when we were invited to showcase it at the Space Educators Institute (SEI) at Western University. SEI educates Ontario science teachers on astronomy related topics. This was the perfect opportunity for us to take our Challenge further and apply it in classrooms. We were able to modify the program so teachers could take the Challenge back to the class and educate their students on rover mission operations. Since this package has been set-up to be shared easily, we wanted to try to extend the offer to anyone that is interested. This blog post will explain how you could run the Rover Exploration Challenge for friends, families or in a classroom.
As an introduction, the program educates participants on the different aspects of rover mission operations. Since we do not have millions of dollars to use a real-life rover, it is all simulated with simulated observational values. Just like with the Curiosity team, we have different Science Groups with specific science goals, though we use different titles: Atmosphere, Water and Surface, instead of GEO and ENV. The overall science goal of the mission is to determine if the mysterious planet provided is habitable – a place that could support life. To do this, participants must plan out observations for the rover to measure different scientific aspects of the planet, such as an oxygen measurement or a water salinity test. Not sure exactly how much oxygen is needed for a habitable environment? Luckily, we’ve created an Activity Dictionary (shown below) that displays what observations you can take while explaining how habitable the returned values are. If you are in the green, or "happy zone" then that measurement would indicate safe levels for humans.
The whole program includes several Planning Days, where a single Planning Day is split into 3 sections. The description of each section is shown in the figure below. The majority of a Planning Day is spent during Activity Planning to allow participants to plan observations for the rover. Overall, a single Planning Day should be around 40 minutes long. The document "Timeline Description" describes how long each section is and what goes on during that time.
Before jumping in, you must determine how you want your Challenge to proceed. There are two options for running this program that we have tested. It can be run over the course of a single day or spread out over the course of several days. At the Ontario Science Centre we run the program over a single day which has 5-6 Planning Days during this time in 30-minute sessions. We have in the past done the Challenge over the course of a week with a summer school where there is one Planning Day per day where the students had to patiently wait to determine what happened with their rover. The main difference is that for the 30-minute option, rover observations are pre-canned along a restricted traverse, whereas for a multi-day exercise you can go out in the evenings to collect measurements and advance the rover position. Either option is suitable, and the program can be easily changed to accommodate whichever you choose.
Next you must determine how you’d like to set up the roles. The roles associated with this Challenge are Mission Lead, Rover Driver, Instrument Engineer, Science Lead and Science Planners. If you want a more of a variety within your group we would suggest keeping all the roles and dividing it as follows: 1x Mission Lead, 1-2x Rover Driver, 1-2x Instrument Engineers, 1-2x Science Leads and the rest Science Planner (minimum of 3 per Science Group). For a classroom type setting, all students could be Science Planners while the teacher is Mission Lead. In this setting, the Mission Lead would also assume the role of Rover Driver and Instrument Engineer. Within the Science Planners for each Science Group, they could talk among themselves on who should be their Science Leader.
Next you must determine how you’d like to set up the roles. The roles associated with this Challenge are Mission Lead, Rover Driver, Instrument Engineer, Science Lead and Science Planners. If you want a more of a variety within your group we would suggest keeping all the roles and dividing it as follows: 1x Mission Lead, 1-2x Rover Driver, 1-2x Instrument Engineers, 1-2x Science Leads and the rest Science Planner (minimum of 3 per Science Group). For a classroom type setting, all students could be Science Planners while the teacher is Mission Lead. In this setting, the Mission Lead would also assume the role of Rover Driver and Instrument Engineer. Within the Science Planners for each Science Group, they could talk among themselves on who should be their Science Leader.
Once you’ve figured out your set up, you can proceed with starting the
Challenge. The package we’ve provided has a variety of handouts and
presentations to help run the program. When first running the program at
the Ontario Science Centre, we wanted to represent a habitable version
of the planet. To do this, we spent a day acquiring Earth measurements
and images for 7 stop locations. All of these have been provided if you
wanted to do a habitable version of the Challenge. You are also free to
change the measurement values to be inhabitable if that is the route
you’d like to choose. A python program is also in the package that will
return the results for each planning day based on user input. To
understand all of the items in the package, refer to the Instructions
for the Rover Exploration Challenge document.
The package can be accessed at the following link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oVm-4Crxy55byRY4Y7GZvdxY6FFGqWC-?usp=sharing. To keep track of who is using our program, there is a spreadsheet (Tracking REC Usage) to record your name, how you are using the program (education, personal, etc.) and where. If you have any comments or questions about the program, feel free to email myself at ccamp93@yorku.ca.
On a final note, we also got the amazing opportunity this year to turn our outreach program into a boardgame. This was a fun, relaxing arts and craft experience which is quite different than the usual research we do in the lab. We have also made this open for people to use. If you are curious about accessing a copy of our boardgame version of the challenge, see Christina’s blog post: http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2019/09/rover-exploration-challenge-boardgame.html.
Happy planning and we hope you enjoy the Rover Exploration Challenge as much as we do!
The package can be accessed at the following link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oVm-4Crxy55byRY4Y7GZvdxY6FFGqWC-?usp=sharing. To keep track of who is using our program, there is a spreadsheet (Tracking REC Usage) to record your name, how you are using the program (education, personal, etc.) and where. If you have any comments or questions about the program, feel free to email myself at ccamp93@yorku.ca.
On a final note, we also got the amazing opportunity this year to turn our outreach program into a boardgame. This was a fun, relaxing arts and craft experience which is quite different than the usual research we do in the lab. We have also made this open for people to use. If you are curious about accessing a copy of our boardgame version of the challenge, see Christina’s blog post: http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2019/09/rover-exploration-challenge-boardgame.html.
Happy planning and we hope you enjoy the Rover Exploration Challenge as much as we do!
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