Recap of the 2022 NASA Space Apps Challenge for the Sacramento region in Folsom, California

The 2022 NASA Space Apps Challenge (hackathon) in Sacramento was a total blast! It happened over the weekend of October 1st and 2nd, 2022. This article was originally written by Ingrid Rosten , the lead organizer of the event. I was proud and happy to be her helper and partner to make the event happen. Other partners, sponsors, and volunteers were essential too. And the participants - who were the reason we organized the event! Keep reading to learn more about all of them and what happened at this rewarding experience.

We want to thank and congratulate all the participants for joining in the weekend hackathon event and for working hard on the challenges proposed by NASA. We had adults and kids alike join in the mix to make an interesting and fun-filled weekend both in-person and at home.

The in-person event was held at The Granite School in Folsom, home of the?Northern California Innovation District . A huge Thank You to Phil Scott and everyone associated with NCID who made this space available for us! (And who were fantastic hosts for the venue.)

Judges and attendees alike learned so much and agreed that space and earth have so much to teach us and we have much to learn and explore. We will share some photos from the event to give you a peek into the remarkable event.

The challenges ranged in nature from “How does climate change affect you?” to “Build a space biology superhero.” Teams could even “Create your own” challenge – and they did!?

Most importantly, we wish to thank our sponsors this year:?AIAA ,?NCID ,?Tecma ,?Aero Maestro ,?ACM Chapter Sacramento ,?and Abraham Vasant. It couldn’t have happened without you…our rock, our world!?

The weekend after this Challenge was another major event for Sacramento: the ACM?5th Future Worlds Symposium . Dr Harsh Verma was there to tell people about this event and the Association for Computing Machinery .

We had a total of 10 pitch presentations on Sunday afternoon. Here are some examples:

They followed with our judges and attendees voting for 1st, 2nd, and People’s Choice Awards which were:

AWARD????????????????????????????TEAM NAME????????????????????????????????????????????CHALLENGE TITLE

People’s Choice??????????????FCUSD ACM Student Chapter Team 1????How Does Climate Change Affect You?

2nd?Place?????????????????????????California?????????????????????????????????????????????????????Learning Through the Looking Glass

1st?Place?????????????????????????Rome_Venus???????????????????????????????????????????????Exploring Venus Together

Our esteemed judges included L. Jane Hansen , an aerospace engineer and entrepreneur. She also is a leader with the?American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Sacramento section ; Yang Ni , CEO/President of?CalNY Ventures , an investment and promotions firm for emerging technologies with offices in the U.S., U.K. and several Asian locations and Farid Ismayilzada , Founder/CEO of?Technovate Investments LLC , a venture studio which invests in world-class technology start-up ventures from the developing world now growing them in the Sacramento region.

They asked the right questions and were quickly able to hone in on our top two winners.

Some incredible prizes (games, toys, memorabilia, and books) were donated by Brett Hoffstadt (including several books he authored himself).

Another prize included a tour and Q&A with the team of?Tecma , a space-rated expert machining firm which produces parts made from exotic metals, high-temp alloys and plastics right here in Sacramento.?

Of the 85 registrants, 32 participated on-site; all participants have the opportunity to work on teams around the world virtually through the NASA site. Though we have no way to know who may have joined which virtual teams we wish them much success.

Any and all teams were able to submit their project to NASA for judging by their experts with the opportunity of winning a visit and/or tour of a space launch site, what a prize! If you didn’t make it, stay tuned for the next one in 2023.

While awards are an exciting and compelling reason to participate in Space Apps, NASA wants to remind everyone that Space Apps is, at its core, is a collaborative enterprise — not a competitive one. Above all else, they hope that participants have the opportunity to learn, grow, and share. They celebrate all of the ideas and efforts, whether or not they receive an award!

In this vein, please consider the goals of?NASA Space Apps 2022:?

• To inspire collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking
• To foster interest in Earth and space science and exploration
• To raise awareness of NASA and Space Agency Partners’ data around the world
• To encourage growth and diversity of the next generation of scientists, technologists, designers, engineers, and artists

We wish to thank our incredible volunteers led by Ingrid Rosten : Brett Hoffstadt, PMP, P.E. , Phil Scott , Abraham Vasant , Anthony Thang, and Safiya Ismayilzada for all your hard work to make it happen.?

If you were a part of this event and we neglected to mention or tag you, please chime in with a comment. A version of this article has also been published on the blog of my website: How To Be a Rocket Scientist .

Thanks again to NASA for creating this NASA International Challenge hackathon, for everyone's tremendous participation, and for you who chose to read about the event! If you want to keep in touch to learn about the event that should happen again next year for people in the Sacramento, California region, please talk to me or Ingrid Rosten .