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NASA Launches Exploration Design Challenge
NASA's Exploration Design Challenge provides students in kindergarten through twelfth grade an opportunity to play a unique role in the future of human spaceflight. NASA and Lockheed Martin are developing the //Orion// spacecraft to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and on to an asteroid or Mars. Protecting astronauts from space radiation on these distant travels is an important—and very real—problem that needs solving. NASA is looking for students to help! Using free, standards-based activities along with print and video resources developed by leading education experts, students will learn about space radiation and human spaceflight. Students will then think and act like scientists to analyze different materials that simulate radiation shielding and make recommendations for what best blocks harmful radiation.

Students in grades 9–12 can take the challenge a step further and think and act like engineers to design shielding. Students will follow the engineering design process and work in teams to design radiation shielding to protect a sensor on the //Orion// crew module from space radiation. Once designs are complete, teams may compete for the chance to build their design and have it flown on the //Orion// Exploration Flight Test-1.

All students and educators participating in the challenge will have their name flown on Exploration Flight Test-1 as members of the virtual crew. This unmanned mission is set to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in late 2014. The deadline to register for the virtual crew is ** March 14, 2014 .**

The challenge officially launched on March 11, 2013, and thousands of students around the globe have registered to take part. Help NASA protect our astronauts as they venture to places never before attempted by human beings. Chart your journey to deep space by joining NASA's Exploration Design Challenge at www.nasa.gov/education/edc .

If you are interested in participating in the Exploration Design Challenge, sign up with Mrs. Gorham **  by Friday, January 10, 2014. **Check out the above link to read about the steps involved with the design challenge before signing up.

=**Chicago Maker Challenge **=

Motorola Mobility Foundation is driven by a passionate base of volunteer employees who work every day to solve problems with technology to connect people and make their lives better and easier. Together we want to encourage more people to use technology to solve problems, so we created a competition for students to demonstrate their skills. We’re looking for student makers, creators and problem solvers to design and make a hardware, software or combined technology that solves a community problem or helps make the world more accessible to people with disabilities.

Key Dates
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 * **January 14, 2014:** Registration opens
 * **January 30, 2014:** Chicago Maker Challenge Launch Party at the Harold Washington Library Center from 5:30 – 7:00 pm* (Citizen Schools participants will have an open house session from 4-5:30 pm)
 * <span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: Lato,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**February 14, 2014:** Registration Ends
 * <span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: Lato,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**May 8, 2014:** All project videos must be sent to ChicagoMakerChallenge.org
 * <span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: Lato,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Week of May 20, 2014:** Semi-finalists, finalists & additional winners are notified
 * <span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: Lato,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Week of May 26, 2014:** Chicago Maker Challenge Showcase

For more information, [|click here]