Two teams that took part in the Taipei round of NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge were on Sunday selected for the global round of the hackathon.
Sixty-seven teams participated in the challenge.
The two teams, ET760 and SEAL, are to join the global competition, which is to conclude in January when NASA selects six winning teams, which would be invited to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the organizers said.
The hackathon invites participants from around the world to come up with innovative solutions to the challenges facing people, on Earth and in space, or to create educational games that would help people explore and learn from NASA data.
Some of the solutions being sought are how to provide cheap, accessible Internet connections to people at sea, how to reduce the effects of lunar dust on astronauts and finding new ways for machines to work on planets where electronics function poorly.
ET760’s project is titled Honeycomb Platform, which aims to engage and enable people to help fight wildfires, team member Su Shang-yen (蘇上硯) said.
The idea is to invite people who own drones with firefighting capabilities to register on the platform, which would alert them if a wildfire breaks out in their vicinity, he said.
By using the platform, the drones could arrive at the scene before firefighters, he added.
SEAL, meanwhile, designed a video game that allows players to customize the characteristics of a star to create planets that could reasonably exist in that stellar system.
Based on planetary and atmospheric chemistry, the game places practical restrictions on what can be created, while providing users with a fun educational experience.
Speaking at the hackathon, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Hsu Yu-chin (許有進) said he hoped the challenge would inspire more young people to enter the field of space technology.
“Taiwan has been developing space technology for more than 20 years,” Hsu said.
“Formosat-5 was Taiwan’s first indigenous high-resolution optical telemetry satellite and Formosat-7 was launched into orbit in June. The participation of young talent and their innovative ideas are needed to continue advancing space technology,” he added.
The hackathon was hosted by the American Institute in Taiwan in partnership with the National Space Organization and the Taipei City Government among others.
The eighth edition of the three-day marathon programming contest started on Friday in 229 cities worldwide.
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