By Cyrus A.Natividad

Team Voltage 5 from Philippine Science High School-Western Visayas Campus (PSHS-WVC) emerged as one of the two qualifiers from Iloilo for the NASA Space Apps Challenge.

The NASA Space Apps Challenge 2019 was held on October 18 to 20, 2019 at the CPU Henry Luce III Library American Corner. Science and Techno students from CPU and other schools joined in the exciting three-day “NASA space” activity. The NASA Space Apps Challenge is an international ‘hackathon’ that occurs simultaneously in different cities around the world. Scientists coders, designers and storytellers come together to address the challenges faced on earth; an opportunity brings projects to life for a wide range of application.

A short opening program was attended by Dr. Florence P.Bogacia, CPU Vice President for Finance and Administration, Dr. Irving Rio, CPU Vice President for Academic Affairs who welcomed the participants and representatives from the U.S. Embassy Manila, Matt Kenny, CAO U.S. Embassy in the Philippines and Emily Schaller from the NASA.

The objective of Space Apps Challenge was to discover what innovative, creative ideas the young challengers can bring to the community, according to the organizers from the U.S. Embassy.

WVC proposed to build “a low-cost, easy-to-build and eco-friendly device that can convert noise to electricity.”

An alternative lecture format called the Data Bootcamp Stardust Station was provided by the U.S. Embassy to encourage learning through participatory activities. It shows applications of data, and demonstrates simple hardware projects. Several expert programmers joined in the challenge categories – To the Stars, Planets Near and Far, Our Moon, and Earth’s Oceans. The ‘hackathon’ event is participated in six continents across the globe.

This Year’s Space Apps Challenge is in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Manila, the American Corners of Ateneo De Davao University (AdDU) and Iloilo at Central Philippine University- bringing the challengers to a global stage.

Two teams each from CPU and AdDu were selected to represent the Philippines to compete in the NASA Space Apps Global Competition.