Students filled the halls of Macatawa Bay School Saturday looking for their way to Mars. Their vehicle for the trip to the Red Planet? A Lego robot. Thirty-six teams of fourth- through eighth-graders strained their brains for West Michigan Lego Mania. The students mission was to create a device to be used on Mars. They were judged for clearing dust from a solar panel and freeing a Mars Rover from a sand dune. Mock Mars settings were set up where the students practiced and were judged.
December 16th, 2002
Woman may see space dreams come true The Holland Sentinel
It’s been a while since Deidre LaClair wanted to be Princess Leia. But she never abandoned her dreams of heading into space. LaClair, a geology student at Central Michigan University, recently was appointed to a national panel that will select landing sites for two Mars Exploration Rovers. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is set to launch the probes by this summer.
August 8th, 2001
Celestial simulation The Holland Sentinel
A former Zeeland man is participating in a science project in the Arctic that could help NASA prepare for a manned trip to Mars. Brent Bos, 31, is a member of one of the crews at Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, participating in a Mars mission simulation through the NASA-Haughton Mars Project and the Mars Society. NASA researchers have traveled annually to the 12-mile-wide Haughton Crater on Devon Island because it’s similar to the terrain on Mars. “This is the first year the Mars Society has run its human Mars mission simulation,” said Bos, a 1988 Holland Christian graduate who studied honors physics at the University of Michigan. “It’s meant to help us learn the procedures and gain data for planning a human mission to Mars.