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RIT helps youngsters connect with space
Emma E. Sherman Elementary School students reached for the stars on Jan. 8. And students from the RIT Amateur Radio Club helped make sure they reached them. The club teamed with the Rochester Amateur Radio Association to set up amateur (ham) radios that were used to establish communication between eight of the school’s fifth-graders and flight engineer Sunita Williams, who was soaring overhead at 17,500 miles per hour aboard the International Space Station. “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done with ham radio,” says Adam Gutterman, a fifth-year electrical engineering student and the club’s president. “As a kid, I used to dream of going into space, but I always kind of knew I would never get there. It’s really a thrill knowing that we were able to contact the International Space Station.” Gutterman and electrical engineering students Rashmi Shah and Matt Antonio joined Jim Stefano, electrical engineering department system administrator and one of the club’s advisors, to set up a webcast of the event that was broadcast to students around the globe. The Henrietta school initially applied to NASA’s Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program more than three years ago. Math/science/technology resource teacher Andrea Catena, who organized the event, wasn’t even at the school at the time. In late December, Catena received word that the communication was finally scheduled. Contact was made at 9:38 a.m. and each student asked Williams two questions before losing contact with the space station eight minutes later. At its closest point, the space station was 433 miles away. Topics ranged from the training astronauts endure to the food that is consumed in space. |
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| John Follaco | ||||||||||
