Zero Robotics 2024 is an inspiring program for middle school students that is truly out of this world! The five-week STEM curriculum introduces students to computer programming, robotics, and space engineering, and provides hands-on experience programming Astrobee Satellites. Zero Robotics 2024 is provided through a partnership between the MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled Research Group, the Innovation Learning Center, the Aerospace Corporation, the ISS National Laboratory, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, (NASA), National Science Foundation, STEMX365 and Aurora Flight Science: a Boeing Company.

‍Student participants compete to win a technically challenging game by programming their strategies into an Astrobee Satellite. Students’ programs control the satellites’ speed, rotation, and direction of travel. The students program their satellites to complete competition objectives like navigating obstacles, while conserving resources such as fuel. The programs are autonomous they will use a graphical editor to write code, then simulate their programs immediately and see the results using a simulation. The programming interface and simulation are entirely web-based, so ZR does not require any software downloads or computer configuration.