New TI Contest: The Search for STEMnauts
Published by KermMartian 6 years, 10 months ago (2017-04-19T20:28:34+00:00) | Discuss this article

Texas Instruments has held plenty of contests in the past, from the #TISelfieContest to Math for the Win. Rarely have they held contests of skill that resemble our occasional programming contests, and never (to my knowledge) have they had a programming-related contest of their own. TI's new The Search for STEMnauts "virtual scavenger hunt" aims to change this. A collaboration between NASA and TI, the scavenger hunt challenges teams of up to 5 students in 6th through 12th grades, overseen by an adult mentor, to solve NASA-related programming and problem-solving puzzles.

Throughout this contest, you need to solve a series of activities to earn points. The topics of the activities range from the International Space Station, Earth, and Mars to deep space, aeronautics, and pure technology. The activities themselves involve running programs on your calculator, deciphering codes, and presumably also writing your own programs. So far, only the International Space Station activities have been released. You can enter any time before the scavenger hunt ends on May 31st, and you get points for the activities you correctly complete. The winning team gets TI-84 Plus CEs, a $500 Amazon gift card, and other prizes, and five other teams will be randomly selected to receive TI-84 Plus CEs as well. If you and your friends are in 6th through 12th grade, and you like programming, STEM, or space, you should give this a try! We ask that you please not post the answers on the Cemetech forum, although we encourage you to try to brainstorm approaches and find team members here.

Interestingly enough, the video announcing more details also mentions a new Galaxy Gray color for the TI-84 Plus CE that we haven't seen before. Hmmm...

More Information
The Search for STEMnauts informational website
The Search for STEMnauts introductory video



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