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Lunar Gateway Challenge

Your Mission:

Join us and celebrate Canada’s contribution to The Lunar Gateway!

We’ve partnered up with the Canadian Space Agency, Steamlabs and University of Western Ontario to offer a 5-day residency for five qualifying classrooms across Canada!

Ask your students to draw a robot with an AI system that can solve problems related to space exploration. Ask them to write a short description explaining how their robot could help astronauts and contribute to the Gateway Station mission. Share these ideas with us to qualify for the residency!

Instructions:

  1. Use our Lunar Gateway Challenge Guide to help you get started and guide you through the activity.
  2. Have your student draw out their solution either on paper or you could use an online drawing tool like https://www.autodraw.com and attach a photo or the image file to the form.

    The Lunar Gateway Challenge - Activity Sheet (JPG | PDF)

  3. Enter teacher, facilitator, or adult/parent name, contact email, school name, and postal code.
  4. Enter your student's first name and the name they gave their AI robot.
  5. Enter the student's description of the AI Robot.
  6. Accept the terms and conditions and submit.
  7. Teachers must submit on behalf of their students and can submit as many times as they like, as long as it's a new idea from a different student, group, or class each time. We encourage everyone to participate!
  8. Don't forget to share your inventions with our community on Twitter, @kidscoding #LunarGatewayChallenge.

Submissions

Thank you to all the students who participated in this year's 2023-2024 Lunar Gateway Challenge! Our team is reviewing all your amazing submissions to select our residency winners.

Stay tuned as we prepare to showcase all of your AI robot creations in our gallery below!

Qualifying schools will be notified by mid-December and residencies will take place in January and February 2024.

Submit your students’ ideas for a AI lunar robot!

*All are encouraged to participate but only Canadian Schools will be considered for the 5-day residency

**Submission required to qualify for the 5-day residency

Example of submissions

The Residency Program

Five Canadian classrooms will qualify for a FREE* classroom kit AND a 5-day residency with workshops on coding, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The residency will be led by a Kids Code Jeunesse (KCJ) instructor virtually or in person, depending on location.

FREE* 5-day (2hr workshops) outline:

The five classrooms receiving the residency and an additional five classes will qualify for a FREE* classroom kit that includes:

*Thanks to funding and donation by Canadian Space Agency, CanCode, Amazon Future Engineer, and Strawbees

This residency is in collaboration with the CSA, SteamLabs, and University of Western Ontario.

Residency eligibility requirements:

  • The teacher or educator must submit at least one idea to the Lunar Gateway Challenge, but the more the merrier. Check out our handy Lunar Gateway Challenge Guide to easily implement this activity in your classroom.
  • Students must be between the ages of 10 - 15 years.
  • The school must be located in Canada.
  • The school must have a reliable internet connection and access to laptops.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the KCJ team.

Free Teacher Resources

Need some guidance and inspiration? Below are some free resources and coding activities to help you and your students get started.

This guide will help you create your AI robot by teaching you key concepts about artificial intelligence, robotics, and the Lunar Gateway itself.

Bring coding into the classroom with these fun Scratch projects!

See how Canada is contributing to the Lunar Gateway, a space station orbiting the moon!

Video credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA

Show off your students’ stellar design and coding skills!

Be sure to share pictures, videos, quotes, and screenshots on social media. Tag us at @kidscoding and use the hashtags #codeinthestars and #GatewayChallenge

Curious about what others in the community are up to? Check out the full social media gallery to see even more of what the community is up to!

Meet Our Partners

We are united by a passion for innovation in pursuit of curiosity in space and beyond.

This project is funded by the Canadian Space Agency.

We also celebrate Astro Pi!

Astro Pi is a European Space Agency Education project with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Every year it runs Mission Zero: a non-competitive challenge where students aged 14 and under can send a coded message to run on the Raspberry Pis that are currently on the International Space Station (ISS)!

Next mission launches in 2023!