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Mia Sasser, 15, has always dreamed of working in space science. The ninth-grader’s room is plastered with photos of rovers and images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

“This has been my passion since I was little,” Sasser said. “I love astronomy, space, engineering.”

Mia Sasser examines part of the students’ experiment for the NASA TechRise Challenge. (Emily Neil/WHYY)Thanks to the NASA TechRise challenge, Sasser and three Lenape Middle School classmates are taking a step that might blast them off into STEM careers.

The Central Bucks School District students’ team was one of 60 nationwide who won the chance to participate in the challenge. Now in its third year, the competition is designed for sixth- through 12th-grade students. The team worked with Jennifer Conver, a gifted support teacher at Lenape Middle School, and mentors from NASA and built a rocket-powered lander that NASA scientists will test on a surface designed to look like the moon.

Sasser and fellow ninth-graders Kayleigh Razon, 15, Emma Lofts, 15, and Aanika Oka, 15, have worked together since January to build what they call the SOBIE experiment. SOBIE stands for surface object identification.

From left, Mia Sasser, Emma Lofts, Kayleigh Razon, and Aanika Oka, ninth-graders at Lenape Middle School, pose for a photo. The students won the opportunity to build an experiment through the NASA TechRise Challenge. (Courtesy of Jennifer Conver)The payload features a dash camera with proximity sensors and UV sensors that measure GPS location and other data. Once placed on the rocket, the lander will scan the surface and store data on an SD card, which team members will use to sort through the data manually once it’s returned to them.

“So basically, we have this payload, right, and we’re filling it with different components that are going to be able to identify objects over a surface area,” Lofts explained. “We’re going to send it out and they’re going to then start the experiment. And then it’s going to take in data and then identify different anomalies within that path.”

From left, Kayleigh Razon, Mia Sasser and Emma Lofts examine their experiment for the NASA TechRise Challenge. (Emily Neil/WHYY)Sasser said with the dashcam, GPS and other sensors, they will be able to map out where certain anomalies and objects are. The next step, if they were going to continue to build out the experiment, would be to create an algorithm so that data could be processed automatically without the students having to analyze and map it manually.

This kind of challenge is especially important for girls interested in exploring STEM and science, Razon said.