Kealakehe H.S. engineering team Hawaii’s lone entrant in NASA competition

So many high schoolers are contemplating their futures, but for those on Kealakehe High School’s student engineering team, the future is now.

They will be the only team representing Hawaii among 75 global teams in NASA’s prestigious Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC), in April 2025 in Huntsville, Ala. Those teams hail from 20 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and 16 countries — including 38 high schools, 35 colleges and universities, and two middle schools.

The competition challenges students to design and build human-powered rovers capable of navigating simulated extraterrestrial terrains. The design and build process requires all the STEM disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“This HERC is an interesting competition just because it’s so college-based,” said the team’s advisor, Justin Brown, a math teacher and the school’s Career Technical Education coordinator. “And that’s where we’re really finding the big opportunities for the kids. And now that we have the nicest shop in the state, we’re extremely fortunate. It’s like, ‘Hey, let’s go build some real stuff.’

“And so, it’s been a really good push for us to apply all those skills to some really high-level engineering and design work.”

Brown, who was named Hawaii Teacher of the Year in 2021 by the national nonprofit Association for Career Technical Education, has been successful writing grants and forging external partnerships that allow his students to rub elbows with professional mentors in the aerospace, robotics and engineering fields, and to build their models in an environment akin to what they might find in an industrial setting.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” Brown said. “We win a ton of national and international awards every single year. Our kids graduate with an associate’s degree. We’re articulated with college engineering in high school.

“We’ve just added about $5 million in state-of-the-art equipment, and have been looking at what does that mean in terms of our engineering prep program.”

HERC aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards, which are used in Hawaii public schools.

Teams earn points by successful completion of design reviews, designing and assembling a rover that meets all challenge criteria and successful completion of course obstacles and/or mission tasks. The team with the highest number of points accumulated throughout the project year will be the winner in their respective division.

Students must do 100% of the work, which includes the design, construction of the vehicle and task components — including work that is supported by a professional machinist for the purpose of training or safety — written reports, presentations and preparations for the competition. Through these tasks, students gain a deeper understanding of concepts and content and enhance their communication, collaboration, inquiry, problem-solving and flexibility skills.

“We had to present to a panel of NASA engineers and kind of, like, defend the decisions we had made,” Brown said. “And this has been a real journey for the kids. We had to turn in a 30-page write-up. It was a beast for the kids. We had to present the Monday before Thanksgiving. And the only time they could put us in was 5 a.m. our time. And we had to do the review before we start building.

“We get to do a lot of iterations, and we’ll have another big presentation for them in February.”

After the design review presentations with NASA, Kealakehe’s students will build a prototype for testing prior to competition.

Brown said that 42 students are currently working on the rover, although by April, perhaps 20 or so will make the trek to Alabama. As the fabrication lead on the project, junior Zach Smith will likely be one attending the NASA competition.

“I think the unique aspect of HERC is that it allows students to get an earlier introduction to the aspects of what NASA’s doing as far as the early stages of the lunar rover, or even how to design for the potential usage of certain components of the Mars rover when we hopefully get there,” Smith said.

Smith taken a giant leap toward his college education via distance-learning classes through the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York. He said he’s “found an interest, specifically in mechanical engineering or applied physics.”

“I’ve had a long interest in robotics, itself, ever since elementary school,” Smith said. “When Kealakehe High School started initiatives to implement robotics to the lower levels of education, I found an interest then. And when I came into high school, I started pursuing STEM as well as robotics as a freshman.”

Brown said the work being done on the lunar rover is a continuation of work done on the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

“All the training and the testing that those astronauts did, that happened on Maunakea and Mauna Loa,” he said. “Our kids are curious and inventive. They have all the right stuff to be the future leaders in this new aerospace industry that’s coming up. And HERC is just a great combination of all that, because they’re building cool stuff. It connects to some very real things that we want the kids to consider, like who’s space for? Who gets to make the decisions? Why aren’t students like our students in those rooms? And what do we need to do to make sure they are in the future?

“There’s a whole new generation who’s getting to fall in love with space exploration. But this competition harkens back to the kind of missions that were going on then. Because of the cool new toys, things that used to be done with the world’s best professional engineers can now be done with high school kids.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.