WISH Academy—If you’re looking for an exciting, academic club focused on engineering, look no further than CubeSAT. Overseen by Ms. Doyle, the nine current members of this unique club meet every Friday during lunch in K9 to bring their ideas and endeavors into reality. The club was founded in 2020 by Nathan Scott and Felix Cifuentes as a robotics club focused on building a cube-shaped miniature satellite. However, as more people joined and their skills sharpened, it evolved beyond that simple project: CubeSAT became an educational and competitive club focused on engineering and robotics. CubeSAT’s goal is to provide real-life experience with experimentation, engineering, and most importantly, to have fun.
“I wanted a space where I could engineer creatively outside of just class, and the opportunity to engineer with friends,” said founder and club leader Nathan Scott.
As the club’s size and knowledge grew, this group became competitive. They entered the Future Engineers NASA TechRise Challenge, a competition that allows middle and high-school students to propose experiments they conceived for flight testing and development by NASA.
Club member Nathan Valdivia works on a circuit board for a CubeSat project
CubeSAT won the NASA TechRise Student Challenge twice in a row, in 2021 and 2022. They didn’t let this year’s loss demoralize them; they simply analyzed and improved. Towards the end of the year, they will launch a satellite based on the original 2020 project, an experimental project that measures atmospheric pollution such as CO2, ozone, and UV radiation.
When asked what they hope to achieve, students Logan Westerfield and Marlin jokingly responded, “World domination.” Ms. Doyle stepped in, saying, “No, but I wouldn’t put it past them. They’re actually building a weather satellite that they will launch in 4 different locations to analyze and measure air pollution.”
~ Azariya Ermias
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