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Since November, registration is open for Mission Space Lab, part of the European Astro Pi Challenge 2023/24. The Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation that gives young people up to age 19 the amazing opportunity to write computer programs that run on board the International Space Station (ISS). It is free to take part and young people can participate in two missions: Mission Zero, designed for beginners, and Mission Space Lab, designed for more experienced coders.
This year, Mission Space Lab has a brand-new format. As well as introducing a new activity for teams to work on, we have created new resources to support teams and mentors, and developed a special tool to help teams test their programs.
A big motivator for these changes was to make the activity more accessible and enable more young people to have their code run in space. Listening to feedback from participants and mentors, we are creating the opportunity for even more teams to submit programs that run on the ISS this year, by offering a specific activity and providing more extensive support materials.
For this year’s mission, ESA astronauts have given teams a specific scientific task to solve: to calculate the speed that the ISS is travelling as it orbits the Earth. People working in science often investigate a specific phenomenon or try to solve a particular problem. They have to use their knowledge and skills and the available tools to find ways to answer their research question. For Mission Space Lab, teams will work just like this. They will look at what sensors are available on the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS, develop a solution, and then write a Python program to execute it. To test their program, they will use the new Astro Pi Replay software tool we’ve created, which simulates running their program on board the ISS.
To help teams and mentors take part in Mission Space Lab, we are providing a variety of supporting materials:
We have also run virtual sessions to help mentors and teams familiarise themselves with the new Mission Space Lab activity, and to ask any technical questions they might have. You can watch the recordings of these sessions on YouTube:
Astro Pi Replay is a new simulation tool that we have developed to support Mission Space Lab teams to test their programs. The tool simulates running programs on the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS. It is a Python library available as a plug-in to install in the Thonny IDE where teams write their programs. Thanks to this tool, teams can develop and test their programs on any computer that supports Python, without the need for hardware like the Astro Pi units on board the ISS.
The Astro Pi Replay tool works by replaying a data set captured by a Mission Space Lab team in May 2023. The data set includes readings from the Astro Pi ‘s sensors, and images taken by its visible-light camera like the ones below. Whenever teams run their programs in Thonny with Astro Pi Replay, the tool replays some of this historical data. That means teams can use the historical data to test their programs and calculations.
One of the benefits of using this simulation tool is that it gives teams a taste of what they can expect if their program is run on the ISS. By replaying a sequence of data captured by the Astro Pis in space, teams using sensors will be able to see what kind of data can be collected, and teams using the camera will be able to see some incredible Earth observation images.
If you’re curious about how Astro Pi Replay works, you’ll be pleased to hear we are making it open source soon. That means you’ll be able to look at the source code and find out exactly what the library does and how.
Community members have consistently reported how amazing it is for teams to receive unique Earth observation photos and sensor data from the Astro Pis, and how great the images and data are to inspire young people to participate in their computing classes, clubs, or events. Through the changes we’ve made to Mission Space Lab this year, we want to support as many young people as possible to have the opportunity to engage in space science and capture their own data from the ISS.
If you want a taste of how fantastic Astro Pi is for learners, watch the story of St Joseph’s, a rural Irish school where participating in Astro Pi has inspired the whole community.
Submissions for Mission Space Lab 2023/24 are open until 19 February 2024, so there’s still time to take part! You can find full details and eligibility criteria at astro-pi.org/mission-space-lab.
If you have any questions about the European Astro Pi Challenge, please get in touch at contact@astro-pi.org.
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In our series of community stories, we celebrate some of the amazing young people and educators who are using their passion for technology to create positive change in the world around them.
In our latest story, we’re sharing the inspiring journey of St Joseph’s Secondary School in Rush, Ireland. Over the past few years, the school community has come together to encourage coding and digital skills, harnessing the European Astro Pi Challenge as an opportunity to kindle students’ enthusiasm for tech and teamwork.
We caught up with some of the educators and students at St Joseph’s, fresh off the success of their participation in another round of Astro Pi, to delve a little deeper into the school’s focus on making opportunities to engage with computing technologies accessible to all.
St Joseph’s Secondary School is in the heart of Rush, a rural town steeped in agricultural heritage. The school houses a diverse student population coming from the local multigenerational farming families as well as families who’ve been drawn to Rush more recently by its beautiful countryside and employment opportunities. St Joseph’s leadership team has responded to the changing demographics and increase of its student population by adapting and growing the school’s curriculum to meet the evolving needs of the young people and help them build a strong community.
One of the school’s most popular initiatives has been teaching coding from first year (ages 12–13). This proactive approach has resonated with many students, including Kamaya, a member of the school’s 2022/23 Astro Pi cohort, who first discovered her passion for space science and computing through the movie Interstellar.
I remember the first time I was like, ‘OK, space is cool’ is when I watched a movie. It was called Interstellar. I [realised] I might want to do something like that in my future. So, when I came to [St Joseph’s] secondary school, I saw coding as a subject and I was like, ‘Mum, I’ve got to do coding.’
Kamaya, student at St Joseph’s
A key person encouraging St Joseph’s students to give coding a try has been Mr Murray, or Danny as he is fondly referred to by students and staff alike. Danny was introduced to the importance of engaging with computing technologies while teaching science at a school in England: he attended a Code Club where he saw kids building projects with Raspberry Pis, and he couldn’t wait to get involved. Growing his knowledge from there, Danny changed subject focus when he moved back to Ireland. He took on the challenge of helping St Joseph’s expand their computer science offering, along with leading on all IT-related issues.
When the school introduced mandatory coding taster sessions for all first-year students, Danny was blown away by the students’ eagerness and wanted to provide further opportunities for them to see what they could achieve with digital technologies.
This is where Astro Pi came in. After hearing about this exciting coding challenge through an acquaintance, Danny introduced it to his computer science class, as well as extending an open invitation to all St Joseph’s students. The uptake was vast, especially once he shared that the young people could become the recipients of some very exciting photos.
You get to see photos of Earth that nobody has ever seen. Imagine just talking to somebody and saying, ‘Oh, there’s a picture of the Amazon. I took that picture when I was 14. From space.’
Danny Murray, computing teacher at St Joseph’s
Danny’s mission is to instil in his students the belief that they can achieve anything. Collaborating on Astro Pi projects has enabled young people at St Joseph’s to team up and uncover their strengths, and has helped foster a strong community.
The students’ sense of community has transcended Danny’s classroom, creating a culture of enthusiasm for digital skills at St Joseph’s. Today, a dedicated team of students is in charge of solving tech-related challenges within the school, as Deputy Principal Darren Byrne explains:
Our own students actually go class to class, repairing tech issues. So, every day there are four or five students going around checking PCs in classrooms. They […] give classes to our first-year students on app usage.
Darren Byrne, Deputy Principal at St Joseph’s
It’s invested in the whole school [now], the idea that students can look after this kind of technology themselves. We’re the ones reaching out for help from the students!
To find out how you can get involved in Astro Pi, visit astro-pi.org for further information, deadlines, and more. If you would like to learn more about the other free resources we have available to help you inspire a coding community in your school, head to www.raspberrypi.org/teach.
Help us celebrate St Joseph’s Secondary School by sharing their story on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Today we’re calling all young people who are excited to explore coding and space science, and the mentors who want to support and inspire them on their journey. Astro Pi Mission Space Lab is officially open again, offering young people all over Europe the amazing chance to have their code for a science experiment run in space on the International Space Station (ISS).
With this year’s Mission Space Lab, astronauts from the European Space Agency are setting young people a task: to write a computer program that runs on the ISS and calculates the speed at which the ISS is orbiting planet Earth. Participation in Mission Space Lab is completely free.
Here’s ESA astronaut candidate Rosemary Coogan to introduce this year’s mission:
Mission Space Lab invites young people up to age 19 to work in teams of 2 to 6 and write a Python program for the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS to collect data and calculate the speed at which the ISS is travelling.
Your role as a mentor is to support teams as they design and create their program — with our free guidance resources to help you and your young creators.
We want as many young people as possible to have the chance to take part in Mission Space Lab, so the way in which teams solve the task set by the ESA astronauts can be different depending on the experience of your team:
The Astro Pis are two Raspberry Pi computers stationed on the ISS, each equipped with a High Quality Camera, a Sense HAT add-on board with a number of sensors, and a Coral machine learning accelerator. Each Astro Pi has a hard casing designed especially for space travel.
There are lots of ways to use sensor data from the Astro Pis to calculate the speed of the ISS, so young people can get creative solving their Mission Space Lab task while learning fascinating facts about physics and the inner workings of the ISS.
All Mission Space Lab participants whose programs run on the ISS will receive a certificate recognising their achievement, and they’ll get the chance to attend a Q&A webinar with an ESA astronaut. Teams also receive back data from the ISS based on their Mission Space Lab programs, for example photos or sensor measurements. That means you’ll have the option to explore and use that data in follow-on activities with your young people.
We are providing lots of supporting materials to help you and your team with Mission Space Lab:
Mission Space Lab is open for submissions from today, 6 November 2023, until 19 February 2024.
Visit the Astro Pi website for full details and eligibility criteria: astro-pi.org/mission-space-lab
The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
You can keep up with all Astro Pi news by following the Astro Pi X account (formerly Twitter) or signing up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org.
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Throughout this year, space agencies have been embarking on new missions to explore our solar system, and young people can get involved too through the European Astro Pi Challenge 2023/24, which we’re launching today.
In the past few months India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission landed near the Moon’s south pole, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flew by Venus on its way to the sun, and the SpaceX Crew-7 launched to the International Space Station (ISS), led by ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen. We’re especially excited about Andreas’ mission because he’s the astronaut who will help to run young people’s Astro Pi programs on board the ISS this year.
As you may know, the European Astro Pi Challenge gives young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific experiments in space by writing computer programs for the Astro Pis, special Raspberry Pi computers on board the ISS.
The Astro Pi Challenge is free and offers two missions for young people: Mission Zero is an inspiring activity for introducing kids to text-based programming with Python. Mission Space Lab gives teams of young people the chance to take on a more challenging programming task and stretch their coding and science skills.
Participation in Astro Pi is open to young people up to age 19 in ESA Member States (see the Astro Pi website for eligibility details).
In Astro Pi Mission Zero, young people write a simple Python program to take a reading using a sensor on one of the ISS Astro Pi computers and display a personalised pixel art image for the astronauts on board the ISS. They can take part by themselves or as coding teams.
The theme for Mission Zero 2023/24 is ‘fauna and flora’: young people are invited to program pixel art images or animations of animals, plants, or fungi to display on the Astro Pi computers’ LED pixel screen and remind the astronauts aboard the ISS of Earth’s natural wonders.
By following the guide we provide, kids can complete the Mission Zero coding activity in around one hour, for example during a school lesson or coding club session. No coding experience is needed to take part. Kids can write their code in any web browser on any computer connected to the internet, without special equipment or software.
All young people that meet the eligibility criteria and follow the official Mission Zero guidelines will have their program run in space for up to 30 seconds. They will receive a unique and personalised certificate to show their coding achievement. The certificate will display the exact start and end time of their program’s run, and where the ISS was above Earth in this time period.
Mission Zero 2023/24 opens today and is open until Monday 25 March 2024. It’s very easy to support young people to get involved — find out more on the Astro Pi website:
In this year’s Astro Pi Mission Space Lab, ESA astronauts are inviting teams of young people to solve a scientific task by writing a Python program.
The Mission Space Lab task is to gather data with the Astro Pi computers to calculate the speed at which the ISS is travelling. This new format of the mission will allow many more young people to run their programs in space and get a taste of space science.
Mission Space Lab will open on 6 November. We will share more information about how young people and mentors can participate very soon.
The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
You can keep up with all Astro Pi news by following the Astro Pi X account (formerly Twitter) or signing up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org.
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Celebrate another year of young people’s computer programs in space with us: today we and our collaborators at the European Space Agency can finally announce the winning and highly commended teams in this year’s Astro Pi Mission Space Lab.
In Mission Space Lab, teams of young people work together to create computer programs for scientific experiments to be carried out on the International Space Station. The programs they design and create run on the two Astro Pi computers: space-adapted Raspberry Pis with cameras and a range of sensors.
Teams’ programs were deployed on the ISS during May and ran for up to 3 hours, collecting data for their experiments. Once we’d sent the teams their data, they started analysing it in order to write their Phase 4 reports. To identify patterns and phenomena they were interested in, many teams chose to compare their data with other sources.
We were especially excited to see the results from the experiments this year, particularly given that the upgraded Astro Pi units with their High Quality Cameras were positioned in a new observation window (WORF) on the ISS. This allowed teams to capture high-resolution images with a much wider field of view.
We feel very privileged to see the culmination of the team’s experiments in their final reports. So let’s share a few highlights from this year’s experiments:
Team Aretusa from Sicily explored the effects of climate change by cross-referencing the images they captured with the Astro Pis with historical images from Google Earth. They used Near Infrared photography to capture images, and NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) image processing in their analysis. Below you can see that they have compared data of Saudi Arabia from 1987 to 2023, showing increasing levels of vegetation grown in attempts to restore degraded land.
Team Barrande from the Czech Republic trained AI models on images they gathered to identify topographical features of Earth. Their Mission Space Lab program used the Astro Pi computer’s machine learning dongle to train one AI model in real time. Later, the team also used the collected images to train another model back on Earth. Comparing the outputs of the two models, the team could tell how well the models had identified different topographical features. The below selection shows an image the team’s experiment captured on the left, the same image after processing by the AI model trained on the Astro Pi computer in the middle, and the image processed by the AI model trained on Earth.
Team DAHspace from Portugal measured the intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field along the orbit path of the ISS. Using the magnetometer on the Astro Pi, their experiment recorded data allowing the team to track changes of intensity. The team mapped this data to the ISS’s coordinates, showing the difference in the Earth’s magnetic field between the North Pole (points 1 and 2 on the chart below) and the South Pole (points 3 and 4).
We and our collaborators at ESA Education have been busy reviewing all of the reports to assess the scientific merit, use of the Astro Pi hardware, experiment design, and data analysis. The ten winning teams come from schools and coding clubs in 11 countries. We are sending each team some cool space swag to recognise their achievement.
| Team | Experiment theme | Based at | Country |
| Magnet47 | Life on Earth | O’Neill CVI | Canada |
| Aretusa | Life on Earth | Liceo Da Vinci Floridia | Italy |
| ASaether | Life on Earth | “Andrei Saguna” National College | Romania |
| Barrande | Life on Earth | Gymnázium Joachima Barranda Beroun | Czech Republic |
| Escapers | Life in space | Code Club | Canada |
| Futura | Life in space | Scuola Svizzera Milano | Italy |
| StMarks | Life on Earth | St Mark’s Church of England School | United Kingdom |
| DAHspace | Life on Earth | EB 2,3 D. Afonso Henriques | Portugal |
| T5Clouds | Life on Earth | Dominican College | Ireland |
| PiNuts | Life in space | TEKNISK GYMNASIUM, Skanderborg | Denmark |
You can click on a team name to read the team’s experiment report.
Along with the winning teams, we would like to commend the following teams for their experiments:
| Team | Experiment theme | Based at | Country |
| Parsec | Life on Earth | Liceo Da Vinci Pascoli Gallarate | Italy |
| Celeste | Life on Earth | International School of Florence | Italy |
| LionTech | Life on Earth | Colegiul Național ”Mihai Eminescu” | Romania |
| OHSpace | Life in Space | Oxford High School | United Kingdom |
| Magneto | Life on Earth | The American School of The Hague | Netherlands |
| GreenEye | Life on Earth | ROBOTONIO | Greece |
| Primus | Life on Earth | Independent coding club | Germany |
You can click on a team name to read the team’s experiment report.
All of the teams whose Mission Space Lab programs ran on the ISS will receive a certificate signed by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. The winning and highly commended teams will also be invited to a live video chat with an ESA astronaut in the autumn.
Huge congratulations to every team that participated in Astro Pi Mission Space Lab. We hope you found it fun and inspiring to take part.
A big thank you to everyone who has been involved in the European Astro Pi Challenge this year. An amazing 24,850 young people from 29 countries had their programs run in space this year. We can’t wait to do it all again starting in September.
And it’s not just us saying thanks and well done — here’s a special message from ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer:
On 18 September 2023, we’ll launch the European Astro Pi Challenge for 2023/24. Mission Zero will open in September, and we’ll announce exciting news about Mission Space Lab in September too.
If you know a young person who might be interested in the Astro Pi Challenge, sign up for the newsletter on astro-pi.org and follow the Astro Pi Twitter account for all the latest announcements about how you can support them to take the unique opportunity to write code to run in space.
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After seven successful years on the International Space Station, 250 vertical miles above our planet, the original two Astro Pi computers that we sent to the ISS to help young people run their code in space have been returned to Earth.
From today, one of these Astro Pi computers will be displayed in the Science Museum, London. You can visit it in the new Engineers Gallery, which is dedicated to world-changing engineering innovations and the diverse and fascinating range of people behind them.
The original Astro Pis, nicknamed Izzy and Ed, have played a major part in feeding tens of thousands of young people’s understanding and passion for science, mathematics, engineering, computing, and coding. In their seven years on the International Space Station (ISS), Izzy and Ed had the job of running over 70,000 programs created by young people as part of the annual Astro Pi Challenge.
Nicki Ashworth, 21, took part in the first-ever Astro Pi challenge after hearing about the opportunity at a science fair: “I thought it sounded like an interesting project, and good practice for my programming skills. I was young and had no idea of the extent of the project and how much it would influence my future.”
Like many young people who have participated in the Astro Pi Challenge, Nicki credits the Astro Pi Challenge as an inspiration to learn more about space and programming, and to decide on a career path: “My experience with Astro Pi definitely helped to shape my future choices. I’m currently in my third year of a Mechanical Engineering degree at University of Southampton, specialising in Computational Engineering and Design. I’ve always loved programming, which is why I took part in the Astro Pi competition, but it led to a fascination with space. This encouraged me to look at engineering as a future, and led me to where I am today!”
It all started in 2014, when we started collaborating with organisations including the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency (ESA) to fly two Astro Pi computers to the ISS for educational activities during the six-month Principia mission of British ESA astronaut Tim Peake.
The Astro Pi computers each consist of a Raspberry Pi computer integrated with a digital camera and an add-on board filled with environmental sensors, all enclosed in a protective aluminium flight case.
Commander Tim Peake, Britain’s first visitor to the ISS, accompanied the two first Astro Pi computers on the ISS. He used them to run experiments imagined, designed, and coded by school-age young people across the UK.
We held a competition in UK schools and coding clubs to invite young people to create experiments that could be run on the Astro Pis. Students conceived experiments and coded them in Python; we tested their Python programs and eventually picked seven to run on Izzy and Ed on the ISS.
The students’ experiments ranged from a simple but beautiful program to display the flag of the country over which the ISS was flying at a given time, to a reaction-time test for Tim Peake to measure his changing abilities across the six-month mission. The measurements from all the experiments were downloaded to Earth and analysed by the students.
“I still feel incredibly honoured to have competed in the very first [Astro Pi Challenge],” says Aaron Chamberlain, 18, who was 11 years old when he took part in the first-ever Astro Pi Challenge in 2015. “The experience was incredible and really cemented my enthusiasm for all things computing and coding. Finally looking at the photos the Raspberry Pi had taken of the astronauts floating 400 km above us was a feeling of awe that I will never forget.”
The next year, 2016, we expanded our partnership with ESA Education to be able to open up Astro Pi to young people across ESA Member states. The European Astro Pi Challenge has been going from strength to strength each year since, inspiring young people and adult mentors alike.
In 2021 we decided it was time to retire Izzy and Ed and replace them with upgraded Astro Pi computers with plenty of new and improved hardware, including a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 8 GB RAM.
Dave Honess, STEM Didactics Expert at the European Space Agency, was engineering lead at the Foundation for the first Astro Pi Challenge, and the return of the original hardware is a special event and moment of reflection for him: “It was a strange experience to open the box and hold the original Astro Pis again after all that time and distance they have travelled — literally billions of miles. Even though their mission is over, we will continue to learn from them with a tear-down analysis to find out if they have been affected by their time in space. Since Principia, I have watched the European Astro Pi Challenge grow with pride year on year, but I still feel very fortunate to have been there at the beginning.”
Thanks to the upgraded hardware, we are able to continue to grow the Astro Pi Challenge in collaboration with ESA Education. And each year it’s so exciting to see the creative and ingenious programs tens of thousands of young people from across Europe send us; 24,850 young people took part in the Challenge in the 2022/2023 cycle.
But how have Astro Pis Izzy and Ed fared in space over these seven years? Jonathan Bell, Principal Software Engineer at Raspberry Pi Limited, had a chance to find out first-hand: “I was lucky enough to have a look inside the returned Astro Pis. I was looking for the cosmetic effects of the unit being on the ISS for so long. On the inside they still look as pristine as when I assembled them! Barely a speck of dust on the internal boards, nor any signs that the external interface ports were worn from their years of use. A few dings and scrapes on the anodised exterior were all that I could see — and a missing joystick cap (as it turns out, hot-melt glue isn’t a permanent adhesive…). It was great to see that they still worked! It made me feel proud for what the team and the Astro Pi programme has achieved over the years. It’s good to have Izzy and Ed back!”
The new Engineers Gallery in the Science Museum opens today and is free to visit. Astro Pi computer Izzy is among the amazing exhibits. Learn more at sciencemuseum.org.uk/engineers.
To find out more about the Astro Pi Challenge and how to get involved with your kids at home, your school, or your STEM or coding club, visit astro-pi.org.
The next round of the Challenge starts in September — sign up for news to be the first to hear when we launch it.
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In the Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS), there are two Astro Pi computers called Marie Curie and Nikola Tesla. These computers run the programs young people create as part of the annual European Astro Pi Challenge.
For this year’s Astro Pi Mission Zero, young people sent us over 15000 programs to show the ISS astronauts colourful images and animations of animals and plants on the Astro Pi displays and remind them of home.
Mission Zero is a free beginners’ coding activity. It gives young people the unique opportunity to follow our step-by-step guide to write a simple program in Python that can run in space on the ISS orbiting planet Earth.
The Mission Zero activity this year was to write code to use the Astro Pi’s colour sensor to measure the lighting conditions in the Columbus module, and to then use that measurement to set a colour in an image or animation on the Astro Pi’s 8×8 LED display. We invited young people to design images of fauna and flora to give the astronauts on board the ISS a reminder of the beautiful creatures, plantlife, and landscapes found on planet Earth.
The Mission Zero activity is ideal for learners trying text-based programming for the first time. It covers some key programming concepts, including variables, sequence, and iteration.
This year we received 15551 Mission Zero programs, and after carefully checking them against the entry and safety criteria, we were able to run 15475 programs. They were sent to us by 23605 learners working in teams or independently, and 10207 of this year’s participants were girls.
This year the most Mission Zero programs came from young people in the UK, followed by Spain, France, Italy, and Greece. Lots of different organisations supported young people to take part, including publicly funded primary and secondary schools, as well as educator- and volunteer-led Code Clubs and CoderDojos we support.
We’re celebrating the many different people involved in this year’s mission with a mosaic of the Mission Zero logo made up of lots of the inspiring designs participants sent us. You can explore an interactive version of the image too!
All of the participants whose programs ran on the ISS will be receiving a certificate to recognise their efforts, which will include the time and coordinates of the ISS when their program ran. Programs created by young people from across Europe ran on board the ISS in the final week of May.
If you enjoyed Astro Pi Mission Zero this year, we would be delighted to see you again in the next annual round. If you’re feeling inspired by the images young people have created, we invite you to get involved too. We provide guides and help for all adult mentors who want to support young people to take part, and the step-by-step guide for coding a Mission Zero program in 19 European languages.
The activity of designing an image has been really popular, and we have been super impressed with the creativity of young people’s designs. That’s why we’ll be running Mission Zero in the same format again starting in September.
If you’d like to hear news of the Astro Pi Challenge, please sign up to the newsletter on astro-pi.org:
We are always interested to hear your feedback about Mission Zero, as a mentor or participant. If you would like to share your thoughts with us, please email enquiries@astro-pi.org.
PS Look out for some cool news about the Astro Pi computers, which we’ll announce soon on this blog!
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Over 15,000 teams of young people from across Europe had their computer programs run on board the International Space Station (ISS) this month as part of this year’s European Astro Pi Challenge.
Astro Pi is run in collaboration by us and ESA Education, and offers two ways to get involved: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.
Mission Zero is the Astro Pi beginners’ activity. To take part, young people spend an hour writing a short Python program for the Astro Pi computers on the International Space Station (ISS). This year we invited them to create an 8×8 pixel image or animation on the theme of fauna and flora, which their program showed on an Astro Pi LED matrix display for 30 seconds.
This year, 23605 young people’s Mission Zero programs ran on the ISS. We need to check all the programs before we can send them to space and that means we got to see all the images and animations that the young people created. Their creativity was absolutely incredible! Here are some inspiring examples:
Mission Space Lab runs over eight months and empowers teams of young people to design real science experiments on the ISS, executed by Python programs they write themselves. Teams choose between two themes: ‘Life in space’ and ‘Life on Earth’.
This year, the Mission Space Lab programs of 1245 young people in 294 teams from 21 countries passed our rigorous judging and testing process. These programs were awarded flight status and sent to the Astro Pis on board the ISS, where they captured data for the teams to analyse back down on Earth.
Mission Space Lab teams this year decided to design experiments such as analysing cloud formations to identify where storms commonly occur, looking at ocean colour as a measure of depth, and analysing freshwater systems and the surrounding areas they supply water to.
Teams will be receiving their experiment data later this week, and will be analysing and interpreting it over the next few weeks. For example, the team analysing freshwater systems want to investigate how these systems may be affected by climate change. What their Mission Space Lab program has recorded while running on the Astro Pis is a unique data set that the team can compare against other scientific data.
For the ‘Life on Earth’ category of Mission Space Lab experiments this year, the Astro Pis were positioned in a different place to previous years: in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF). Therefore the Astro Pis could take photos with a wider view. Combined with the High Quality Camera of the upgraded Astro Pi computers we sent to the ISS in 2021, this means that the teams got amazing-quality photos of the Earth’s surface.
Once the experiments for ‘Life on Earth’ were complete, the astronauts moved the Astro Pis back to the Columbus module and replaced their SD cards, ready for capturing the data for the ‘Life in Space’ experiments.
Running programs in an environment as unique as the ISS, where all hardware and software is put to the test, brings many complexities and challenges. Everything that happens on the ISS has to be scheduled well in advance, and astronauts have a strict itinerary to follow to keep the ISS running smoothly.
As usual, this year’s experiments met with their fair share of challenges. One initial challenge the Astro Pis had this year was that the Canadarm, a robotic arm on the outside of the ISS, was in operation during some of the ‘Life on Earth’ experiments. Although it’s fascinating to see part of the ISS in-shot, it also slightly obscured some of the photos.
Another challenge was that window shutters were scheduled to close during some of the experiments, which meant we had to switch around the schedule for Mission Space Lab programs to run so that all of the experiments aiming to capture photos could do so.
Well done to all the young people who’ve taken part in the European Astro Pi Challenge this year.
If you’d like to hear about upcoming Astro Pi Challenges, sign up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org.
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We are excited to share that 294 teams of young people participating in this year’s Astro Pi Mission Space Lab achieved Flight Status: their programs will run on the Astro Pis installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in April.
Mission Space Lab is part of the European Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA Education project run in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It offers young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific investigations in space, by writing computer programs that run on Raspberry Pi computers on board the International Space Station.
To take part in Mission Space Lab, young people form teams and choose between two themes for their experiments, investigating either ‘Life in space’ or ‘Life on Earth’. They send us their experiment ideas in Phase 1, and in Phase 2 they write Python programs to execute their experiments on the Astro Pis onboard the ISS. As we sent upgraded Astro Pis to space at the end of 2021, Mission Space Lab teams can now also choose to use a machine learning accelerator during their experiment time.
In total, 771 teams sent us ideas during Phase 1 in September 2022, so achieving Flight Status is a huge accomplishment for the successful teams. We are delighted that 391 teams submitted programs for their experiments. Teams who submitted had their programs checked for errors and their experiments tested, resulting in 294 teams being granted Flight Status. 134 of these teams included some aspects of machine learning in their experiments using the upgraded Astro Pis’ machine learning accelerator.
The 294 teams to whom we were able to award Flight Status this year represent 1245 young people. 34% of team members are female, and the average participant age is 15. The 294 successful teams hail from 21 countries; Italy has the most teams progressing to the next phase (48), closely followed by Spain (37), the UK (34), Greece (25), and the Czech Republic (25).
Teams can use the Astro Pis to investigate life inside ESA’s Columbus module of the ISS, by writing a program to detect things with at least one of the Astro Pi’s sensors. This can include for example the colour and intensity of light in the module, or the temperature and humidity.
81 teams that created ‘Life in space’ experiments have achieved Flight Status this year. Examples of experiments from this year are investigating how the Earth’s magnetic field is felt on the ISS, what environmental conditions the astronauts experience compared to those on Earth directly beneath the ISS as it orbits, or whether the cabin might be suitable for other lifeforms, such as plants or bacteria.
In the ‘Life on Earth’ theme, teams investigate features on the Earth’s surface using the cameras on the Astro Pis, which are positioned to view Earth from a window on the ISS.
This year the Astro Pis will be located in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF), which is larger than the window the computers were positioned in in previous years. This means that teams running ‘Life on Earth’ experiments can capture better images. 206 teams that created experiments in the ‘Life on Earth’ theme have achieved Flight Status.
Thanks to the upgraded Astro Pi hardware, this is the second year that teams could decide whether to use visible-light or infrared (IR) photography. Teams running experiments using IR photography have chosen to examine topics such as plant health in different regions, the effects of deforestation, and desertification. Teams collecting visible light photography have chosen to design experiments analysing clouds in different regions, changes in ocean colour, the velocity of the ISS, and classification of biomes (e.g. desert, forest, grassland, wetland).
Each of this year’s 391 submissions has been through a number of tests to ensure they follow the challenge rules, meet the ISS security requirements, and can run without errors on the Astro Pis. Once the experiments have started, we can’t rely on astronaut intervention to resolve any issues, so we have to make sure that all of the programs will run without any problems.
This means that the start of the year is a very busy time for us. We run tests on Mission Space Lab teams’ programs on a number of exact replicas of the Astro Pis, including a final test to run every experiment that has passed all tests for the full three-hour experiment duration. The 294 experiments that received Flight Status will take over 5 weeks to run.
97 programs submitted by teams during Phase 2 of Mission Space Lab this year did not pass testing and so could not be awarded Flight Status. We wish we could run every experiment that is submitted, but there is only limited time available for the Astro Pis to be positioned in the ISS window. Therefore, we have to be extremely rigorous in our selection, and many of the 97 teams were not successful because of only small issues in their programs. We recognise how much work every Mission Space Lab team does, and all teams can be very proud of designing and creating an experiment.
Even if you weren’t successful this year, we hope you enjoyed participating and will take part again in next year’s challenge.
Once all of the experiments have run, we will send the teams the data collected during their experiments. Teams will then have time to analyse their data and write a short report to share their findings. Based on these reports, we will select winners of this year’s Mission Space Lab. The winning and highly commended teams will receive a special surprise.
Congratulations to all successful teams! We are really looking forward to seeing your results.
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The European Astro Pi Challenge offers young people the opportunity to write computer programs that run on Raspberry Pi computers on board the International Space Station (ISS). There are two free, annual missions to participate in: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.
Sending your computer program to space is amazing already, and to inspire even more young people about this opportunity, we’re sharing some of the fascinating stories European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer told last round’s Mission Space Lab team winners about his experiences on the ISS.
Last round’s winning Mission Space Lab teams were invited to a very special online session with Matthias, and he shared lots of thoughtful and surprising insights from his mission on the International Space Station. Here are three of the questions from the teams and what Matthias had to say:
Lots of the teams wanted to know about the practicalities of life on the ISS. Team Ad Astra from the UK asked “How did you and your crewmates ensure that you got on well together?” Matthias talked about how supporting each member of the team helps everyone work well together:
It was surprising to hear that the astronauts on the ISS have lots of opportunities to communicate with people on Earth. Matthias explained how the astronauts can keep in regular contact with their family while answering the question from Team Atlantes from Spain:
Team NanoKids asked Matthias about the technologies astronauts use on the ISS, and Matthias shared some fascinating glimpses into what tools help the astronauts in their surroundings:
Thank you to all the teams for these great questions. And thank you to Matthias for offering young people a peek into what life is like in space!
We hope Matthias’ stories inspire lots of young people to take part in the European Astro Pi Challenge. Registration for this round of Mission Space Lab is closed, so why not sign up for news about the next round?
But it’s not too late for young people to get involved today and become part of space history. Astro Pi Mission Zero is still open for participation a little while longer — until 17 March.
Mission Zero is a beginner’s coding activity, so it’s really easy to get involved: young people just need a grown-up to register for them, and a computer with a web browser to participate. In Mission Zero, young people up to age 19 in eligible countries have the chance to send their own simple computer program into space to display a colourful image for the astronauts to see on the ISS.
The one-hour Mission Zero activity comes with step-by-step instructions for young people to follow. No special equipment or coding skills are needed, and all eligible young people who follow the guidelines will have their program run in space. Every Mission Zero participants receives a certificate to show the exact time and the location of the ISS during their programs run, so they’ll have something to remember their stellar achievement.
The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
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Today we’re sharing an Astro Pi Mission Zero codealong video to help even more young people send their code into space.
In Mission Zero, young people write a simple program and display a colourful image on an Astro Pi computer on board the International Space Station (ISS). When the astronauts on mission on the ISS are working nearby, they can see the images young people have designed.
No coding experience is needed for Mission Zero. It’s a free and inspiring beginners’ coding activity. All young people need is an hour to write the program, a web browser on any computer with internet access, and an adult mentor who can register online to access the Mission Hub (see below).
In the codealong video, Rebecca from our team shows young people how to write their Mission Zero program step by step. We hope that it will open up this amazing coding activity to even more young people. (There’s also the written step-by-step guide to creating your program, available in 20 languages.)
Young people up to age 19 in ESA Member States are invited to take part, individually or as teams (see the eligibility details).
Every participant will receive a piece of space science history to keep: a personalised, printable certificate that shows their Mission Zero program’s exact start and end time, and the position of the ISS while their program ran.
The theme to inspire images for Mission Zero this year is ‘flora and fauna’, to remind the ISS astronauts of their home. The images can show anything from flowers and trees to birds, insects, and other animals. Young people could even create a series of images to show as an animation during the 30 seconds their program will run.
Mission Zero 2022/23 is open until 17 March 2023.
If you’re an adult mentor supporting young people to take part, read the mission guidelines to find out all you need to know. You can also watch this short video showing you exactly how to register to access the Mission Hub and get the code to identify your young people’s programs.
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Inspire young people about coding and space science with Astro Pi Mission Zero. Mission Zero offers young people the chance to write code that will run in space! It opens for participants today.
In Mission Zero, young people write a simple computer program to run on an Astro Pi computer on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Following step-by-step instructions, they write code to take a reading from an Astro Pi sensor and display a colourful image for the ISS astronauts to see as they go about their daily tasks. This is a great, one-hour activity for beginners to programming.
Participation is free and open for young people up to age 19 in ESA Member States (eligibility details). Everything can be done in a web browser, on any computer with internet access. No special hardware or prior coding skills are needed.
Participants will receive a piece of space science history to keep: a personalised certificate they can download, which shows their Mission Zero program’s exact start and end time, and the position of the ISS when their program ran.
All young people’s entries that meet the eligibility criteria and follow the official Mission Zero guidelines will have their program run in space for up to 30 seconds.
Mission Zero 2022/23 is open until 17 March 2023.
If you’ve been involved in Mission Zero before, you will notice lots of things have changed. This year’s Mission Zero participants will be the first to use our brand-new online code editor, a tool that makes it super easy to write their program using the Python language.
Thanks to the new Astro Pi computers that we sent to the ISS in 2021, there’s a brand-new colour and luminosity sensor, which has never been available to Mission Zero programmers before:
Finally, this year we’re challenging coders to create a colourful image to show on the Astro Pi’s LED display, and to use the data from the colour sensor to determine the image’s background colour.
The theme to inspire images for Mission Zero 2022/23 is ‘flora and fauna’. The images participants design can represent any aspect of this theme, such as flowers, trees, animals, or insects. Young people could even choose to program a series of images to show a short animation during the 30 seconds their program will run.
Here are some examples of images created by last year’s Mission Zero participants. What will you create?
The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Young people can also take part in Astro Pi Mission Space Lab, where they will work to design a real scientific experiment to run on the Astro Pi computers.
You can keep updated with all of the latest Astro Pi news by following the Astro Pi Twitter account or signing up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org.
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The European Astro Pi Challenge is back for another year. This is young people’s chance to write computer programs that run on board the International Space Station.
Young people can take part in two Astro Pi challenges: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab. Participation is free and open for young people up to age 19 in ESA Member States (see more details about eligibility on the Astro Pi website). Young people can participate in one or both of the challenges.
Their programs will run on the two new upgraded Astro Pi computers, which launched into space in December 2021. The Astro Pis were named after the two inspirational European scientists Nikola Tesla and Marie Skłodowska-Curie by Mission Zero participants. For the 2021/22 European Astro Pi Challenge, these new computers ran over 17,000 programs written by young people from 26 countries.
Here is ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer getting the new Astro Pis ready for young people’s experiments.
In Mission Space Lab, teams of young people work together with a mentor who supports them, as they design a scientific experiment to be run on the Astro Pis in space.
Teams write programs that use an Astro Pi’s sensors and camera to collect data from the International Space Station, which the teams then analyse. This video has more information about the Astro Pi computers and how teams can choose an experiment idea:
Registration for Mission Space Lab is now open, and participation takes place over eight months. Mentors need to register their team and submit the team’s experiment idea by 28 October 2022. For more details on how to register, visit the Mission Space Lab webpages.
For inspiration, you can read the reports written by the winning teams for Mission Space Lab 2021/22. What will your team’s experiment idea be? We can’t wait to hear about it.
Mission Zero is the beginners’ challenge where young people write a simple program and get a taste of space science.
All eligible programs that follow the official guidelines will run in space for up to 30 seconds. The young people who participate receive a certificate they can download which shows their program’s exact start and end time, and the position of the ISS when their program ran — a piece of space science history to keep!
Mission Zero opens on 22 September 2022. Watch this space for more details on launch day.
The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
You can stay up to date with all of the latest Astro Pi news by following the Astro Pi Twitter account or signing up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org
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Sobhy Fouda started his Astro Pi journey in 2019 by helping a group of young people participate in Astro Pi Mission Zero, the beginners’ activity of the annual European Astro Pi Challenge. In Mission Zero, participants write a simple computer program that runs on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Seeing the wonder on the faces of the young people on the day when their programs were sent to space motivated Sobhy to take the next step: the year after, he became the mentor of a team of young people who wanted to take part in Astro Pi Mission Space Lab 2020/21. Sobhy supported them for 8 months as they designed and wrote a program to conduct their own scientific experiment on the ISS. The team placed among the 10 winners of Mission Space Lab that year.
Among this winning team was Ismail, who joined Sobhy as a mentor for the next round of Astro Pi Mission Space Lab in 2021/22. We spoke to Sobhy and Ismail about their experiences as mentors, about how being involved in Astro Pi changed their life, and about how when you dream big, you can inspire others to do the same.
“I have always loved space and I had big dreams of becoming a pilot,” said Sobhy. After graduating with a mechatronics engineering degree from the German University in Cairo, he moved to the UK to study aircraft maintenance and aerospace engineering. During this time, Sobhy heard about the Astro Pi Challenge and decided to support some young people in his community to take part in Mission Zero. “It was my first experience with the Astro Pi programme, so it was a great first step for me to teach the team some basic Python skills.”
Sadly, Sobhy was unable to continue down his chosen career path in the UK due to health issues. He said, “It was a very difficult time for me. It was hard to walk away from a dream I had held for so long. I decided to apply for a scholarship within aerospace in Germany, focusing more on writing code, as well as on R&D [research and development].” Sobhy credited his participation as a mentor in Mission Zero as crucial to his success with this next step: “I thoroughly believe that my mentorship of a Mission Zero team helped me to demonstrate my social commitment, which was a significant requirement for the scholarship.”
When Sobhy was awarded the scholarship, he and his wife moved to Berlin, but it was hard for him to find inspiration. This changed when he decided to be an Astro Pi mentor again. “My wife put the word out about it [Astro Pi Mission Space Lab] in my community, and we had a number of young people come forward.”
With help from Sobhy, his Mission Space Lab team started thinking through experiment ideas a couple of months in advance of the challenge start. “Once I had got the kids familiarised with the sensors on the Astro Pi computer and the conditions on the ISS, it was the logical next step to start introducing more Python to learn how to control these sensors and discuss what we could analyse.”
Sobhy’s team successfully submitted an idea for a Mission Space Lab experiment: investigating how the Earth’s magnetic field correlates with its climate, and how this affects near-Earth objects’ behaviour in low-Earth orbit. Next, the team of young people received an Astro Pi hardware kit with which to test the program they wrote in realistic conditions. Sobhy said that “once we received our Astro Pi kit with the sensors, I then used these sensors to make the experiments more relatable to the kids, getting them to measure the humidity in their rooms for example, and I tried to gamify the sessions as much as possible to keep it fun and ignite their imagination.”
One young person on Sobhy’s Mission Space Lab team was Ismail, who was 17 at the time. Ismail explained, “I had some programming experience, as I had worked in Sobhy’s previous teams for Mission Zero, but taking part in Mission Space Lab really helped me to develop these skills in a practical way.”
Ismail was particularly surprised by how much he loved working with the Astro Pi hardware . “I always thought I would follow a career path in programming, however, working with the Raspberry Pi computer and its sensors made me realise that I liked working with the hardware even more than doing programming,” said Ismail. “I ended up changing my choice of degree to mechatronics, so my Mission Space Lab experience really helped me to find the career path I was meant to be on.”
Taking part in Astro Pi Mission Space Lab wasn’t the only thing that shaped Ismail’s path: he credits Sobhy’s mentorship for helping him achieve his goals. “Sobhy was such a good mentor. His passion for the project radiated from him and infected us all! He explained what we needed to tackle, asked questions, and then gave us small activities to put our programming experience into practice in a practical way. It made the programming so much more interesting.”
Sobhy said that when the team was announced among the winners of Mission Space Lab in the 20/21 Astro Pi Challenge, “seeing the team’s reaction was so rewarding. All our hard work paid off, and I was so happy and proud of the team and what they had achieved.” Ismail added, “I still have to pinch myself that we actually won. I’m constantly asking myself if it actually happened, as it was so unbelievable. It was incredible.”
Sobhy has stayed in contact with the young people he mentored in the Astro Pi Challenge and their bond remains strong. Ismail said, “He has really become a friend. He was always so helpful and knowledgeable. I just loved working with him, so when he asked if I wanted to become an assistant Astro Pi mentor, I took the opportunity despite having other commitments.”
Moving on to become a mentor alongside Sobhy in the 2021/22 Astro Pi Challenge was an eye-opening experience for Ismail. “I had to learn a new set of skills,” said Ismail. “In particular, I realised I needed to improve my presentation skills. To start with I was really uncomfortable speaking in front of a group, but now I’m not, and this confidence transferred over to my university studies. That’s been a really great benefit I’ve taken from the experience.”
“[My] Mission Space Lab experience really helped me to find the career path I was meant to be on.”
Ismail, Mission Space Lab participant and mentor
For us it was wonderful to hear about these lasting friendships and connections that have formed among the people participating in Mission Space Lab. Both Sobhy and Ismail felt that while mentoring a Mission Space Lab team can be challenging at times, the rewards are worth it. Watching their team develop and seeing the young people connect made the experience extremely rewarding.
Ismail concluded by saying: “Astro Pi has been one of the best experiences I have had in my life. I have so much to be thankful for, and I owe this to Astro Pi, but even more to my mentor Sobhy. He has encouraged me to have this incredible experience, helped me find my path in life, and guided me every step of the way. I will remember him and be thankful to him for the rest of my life. It’s been life-changing.”
In only a few days, you’ll be able to register as a team mentor for Astro Pi Mission Space Lab 2022/23.
The European Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA education programme in collaboration with us at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, starts again from 12 September. Sign up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org to be the first to hear news about the programme.
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It’s been an incredible year for the European Astro Pi Challenge. We’ve sent new hardware into space, seen record numbers of young people participate in the Challenge, and received lots of fantastic programs. Before we say goodbye to the 2021/22 European Astro Pi Challenge, the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the European Space Agency are thrilled to announce this year’s winning and highly commended Mission Space Lab teams.
In Mission Space Lab, teams of young people aged up to 19 work together to create scientific experiments to be carried out on the International Space Station. Their mission is to design and create a program to run on the two Astro Pi computers — space-adapted Raspberry Pis with cameras and a range of sensors.
This year, 799 teams of young people designed experiments and entered Mission Space Lab and 502 of these teams were invited to Phase 2, which is 25% more than last year! The teams each received an Astro Pi kit to write and test their programs on and 299 teams submitted programs that passed rigorous testing at Astro Pi Mission Control and achieved ‘flight status’.
After their program collected data during the experiment’s three-hour runtime on the ISS, each team analysed the results and wrote a short report to describe their experiment.
We were especially excited to see what experiments young people would investigate this year, as their programs would be the first to run on the brand-new Astro Pi units, which were named after Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie by participants in this year’s Mission Zero.
Let’s take a look at the teams’ investigations for Mission Space Lab 2021/22!
In this year’s Challenge, the environment and climate change was a strong theme among the 205 team experiment reports. Several teams investigated topics such as changing water levels, wildfires, and the effect of different clouds and aeroplane contrails on global warming.
Team Seekers from Itis Delpozzo Cuneo in Italy and Team Adastra from St Paul’s Girls’ School in the UK made observations about reduction of water levels in the Aral Sea, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
“We have gained skills with data research and machine learning, in relation to scientific experiments, which will hopefully give us a basis to move into more complex projects with machine learning.”
Team Adastra
Team St Marks from Saint Marks Church of England School in the UK calculated NDVI (normalised difference vegetation index) for images they had captured to look for macroplastics in the ocean. This is a technique for identifying vegetation from images. The team used it to search for the rafts of sargassum seaweed that form around plastics floating on the water. They were lucky enough to successfully photograph and identify several seaweed rafts during their three hour experiment time.
Team Nanokids from the UK used the Coral machine learning accelerator to analyse images of clouds in real time. Collecting this data could be used to warn aircraft of the risk of turbulence, predict weather, and detect pollution. The team reported that they “learned a lot about the various different cloud types, their characteristics and their different effects, as well as how to create a simple ML model with Teachable Machine, which will help us in future projects.”
Team Centauri from Diverbot in Spain were inspired by the influence of high altitude cloud vapour on the Greenhouse Effect to calculate the height of clouds from images taken by the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera. They identified the potential to scale-up their experiment, in order to analyse hundreds or thousands of images of clouds and calculate their impact on the temperature of the Earth.
We also saw lots of experiment reports about volcanoes. Team Six Sense from Escola Secundária Inês de Castro in Portugal ran an experiment inspired by the La Palma volcano, which erupted in September 2021. The team’s experiment captured images of a volcano in Fogo Island, Cape Verde.
Team LandISS from Liceo Scientifico “A. Landi” in Italy captured an extraordinary image of emissions from the Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico, which reactivated in 1994 and has been producing powerful explosions at irregular intervals ever since.
Team DuoDo from Liceul Teoretic Tudor Vianu in Romania investigated if there had been changes to vegetation health on the Earth since the pandemic, by comparing NDVI calculations from their data. The judges were especially impressed with how they reported their analysis and results.
Team Atlantes from Niubit in Spain wanted to build a bridge between the real and virtual world by visualising their NDVI calculations as a three dimensional Minecraft video game. Check out how they did this and some of their results in their video.
Team Rocha21, from IES José Frugoni Pérez in the Canary Islands, also explored different ways to communicate and share their data. They used sonoUno (software originally developed to sonify astronomical data) and online Braille translators to design tactile diagrams in order to explore their Life on Earth photographs and NDVI data, working in collaboration with six visually-impaired students.
Some of this year’s Mission Space Lab teams chose to conduct their experiments about life on the ISS. We saw experiments to investigate the possibility for growing fungi as space crops (Team NGC224 from CoderDojo Perugia in Italy) and the effect of temperature and pressure on the human body on Earth and in space (Team CDV-CDI2 from CoderDojo Votanikos in Greece, in collaboration with CoderDojo Iraq).
Team Hyperion from JVS Hyperion in Belgium investigated the effect of the sun on the Earth’s magnetic field, comparing data collected during daytime and nighttime as the ISS orbited Earth.
Not only did we get to see this year’s experiments, but we also had a chance to hear them! Sound and music was very popular among the Mission Space Lab teams.
Team Cuza3 from Colegiul National ”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” in Romania, made “The Ballad of Pressure” by attributing notes to pressure data from the ISS. Team Alessi Pi from Liceo Scientifico “G.Alessi” in Italy made a melody by mapping data to a music scale with other sensor readings mapped to additional instruments.
Team Gubbins, from Hyvinkään Lukio in Finland, measured magnetic flux density to determine the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field, using the Astro Pi magnetometer, which they sonified and used to make a music video.
The judges from ESA and the Raspberry Pi Foundation took on the huge task of reviewing all the reports to consider scientific merit, experiment design and methodology, data analysis, report quality, and innovative use of the Astro Pi hardware.
The ten winning teams come from coding clubs and schools from France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Romania, and the United Kingdom and will each receive cool space swag.
| Team | Project | Organisation | Country |
| AdAstra | Life on Earth | St Paul’s Girls’ School | United Kingdom |
| Asterix | Life on Earth | Household | France |
| Atlantes | Life on Earth | Niubit | Spain |
| BetFrac | Life on Earth | Escoles Betlem | Spain |
| Centauri | Life on Earth | Diverbot | Spain |
| DoDuo | Life on Earth | Liceul Teoretic Tudor Vianu | Romania |
| DSpi | Life on Earth | PEKTPE Grevenon | Greece |
| GreenPi | Life in Space | IESS European High School | Italy |
| NanoKids | Life on Earth | Household | United Kingdom |
| RedsTeam | Life in Space | Household | Italy |
| Team | Project | Organisation | Country |
| CDV-CDI | Life on Earth | CoderDojo Votanikos and CoderDojo Iraq | Greece |
| CorMat | Life on Earth | Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege | Belgium |
| ISF | Life in Space | Luxembourg Tech School | Luxembourg |
| LAZOS22 | Life on Earth | Aux Lazaristes La Salle | France |
| Pithons | Life on Earth | The Perse School | United Kingdom |
| Rocha21 | Life on Earth | IES José Frugoni Pérez | Spain |
Click each team name to read their experiment report.
Every Astro Pi team that reached Phase 3 of Mission Space Lab will receive a certificate signed by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti to show family and friends that they have had a scientific experiment run on the ISS!
The winning and highly commended teams will be invited to an online Q&A with an ESA astronaut in the autumn. Look out for more information about this soon!
Everyone from the Raspberry Pi Foundation and ESA Education teams congratulates this year’s Mission Space Lab participants — we hope you found it as fun and inspiring as we did!
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab as part of this year’s Challenge. It has been incredible to have 28,126 young people from 26 countries run their programs in space! We can’t wait to do it all again.
Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab relaunch in September 2022!
If you know a young person who would be interested in the Challenge, sign up for the newsletter on astro-pi.org and follow the Astro Pi Twitter account for all the latest announcements.
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We and our collaborators at ESA Education are excited to announce that 17,168 programs written by young people from 26 countries have been successfully deployed on board the International Space Station (ISS) for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2021/22. And we can finally reveal the names of the two new and upgraded Astro Pi computers that Astro Pi participants have chosen.
A record number of 28,126 young people took part across both missions in the Astro Pi Challenge 2021/22. In addition to the 299 Mission Space Lab teams who achieved flight status with the code they wrote for their scientific experiments this year, young people wrote 16,869 Mission Zero programs that were run on the new Astro Pi computers. This is an amazing 84% increase compared to Mission Zero last year.
Mission Zero is perfect for beginner coders: participants follow our step-by-step instructions and write a simple program for the Astro Pis. The program takes a humidity reading on board the ISS and displays it for the astronauts. Participants can also include code to display their own unique message on the Astro Pi LED displays. Mission Zero teams are very inventive, and the young people made great use of the Astro Pis’ LED display to create pixel art:
Every Mission Zero participant receives a unique certificate showing exactly where the ISS was on its orbital path when their program was run:
This year, the deployment of all the Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab programs was overseen by ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. But before he could do that, he first had an extra special task: unpacking and assembling the brand-new Astro Pi units in microgravity.
The two original Astro Pis, named Ed and Izzy, travelled to the ISS back in 2015 as part of Tim Peake’s Principia mission. Since then, these two special Raspberry Pi computers have run programs written by more than 54,000 young people. They have done an amazing job and will return to Earth later in 2022.
This year’s European Astro Pi Challenge is the first to use the two all-new Astro Pi computers, which we sent up to the ISS in December 2021. They are packed with special features, widening young people’s possibilities for new Mission Space Lab experiments. Running this year’s 17,168 programs was the new Astro Pis’ first task.
All young people taking part in Mission Zero this year had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: they got to suggest and vote for the names of the two new Astro Pi computers. We received nearly 7,000 name suggestions.
ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer has recorded a special message for all Astro Pi participants, revealing that the new Astro Pi computers will be named in honour of two inspirational European scientists drum roll… Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie!
The Astro Pi unit equipped with a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera that is sensitive to near-infrared light is now called Nikola Tesla, and the Astro Pi unit with a visible-light sensitive High Quality Camera is now called Marie Curie.
Marie Curie, whose full name is Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie, was born in Poland in 1867 and the first person ever to win two Nobel Prizes, in Physics and Chemistry, for her contribution to pioneering work on radioactivity and the treatment of cancer. Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia in 1856, and his innovations in electrical engineering included alternating current — vital for transmitting electricity over long distances — and the induction motor.
Marie Skłodowska–Curie and Nikola Tesla’s work continues to impact all of our lives today, and we are delighted that this year’s Astro Pi participants have democratically chosen their names for the new Astro Pi computers.
The European Astro Pi Challenge will be back again in September 2022. Subscribe to the Astro Pi newsletter on the Astro Pi website to be the first to hear when the 2022/23 missions have lift off!
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We and our partners at ESA Education are excited to announce that 299 teams of young people who entered Mission Space Lab this year have achieved flight status as part of the 2021/22 European Astro Pi Challenge. This means that these young people’s programs are the first ever to run on the two upgraded Astro Pi units on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Mission Space Lab gives teams of young people up to age 19 the opportunity to design and conduct their own scientific experiments that run on board the ISS. It’s an eight-month long activity that follows the European school year. The exciting hardware upgrades inspired a record number of young people to send us their Mission Space Lab experiment ideas.
Teams who want to take on Mission Space Lab choose between two themes for their experiments, investigating either ‘Life in space’ or ‘Life on Earth’. From this year onwards, thanks to the new Astro Pi hardware, teams can also choose to use new sensors and a Coral machine learning accelerator during their experiment time.
Using the Astro Pi units’ sensors, teams can investigate life inside the Columbus module of the ISS. This year, 71 ‘Life in space’ experiments are running on the Astro Pi units. The 71 teams are investigating a wide range of topics: for example, how the Earth’s magnetic field is experienced on the ISS in space, how the environmental conditions that the astronauts experience compare with those on Earth beneath the ISS on its orbit, or whether the conditions in the ISS might be suitable for other lifeforms, such as plants or bacteria.
For ‘Life in space’ experiments, teams can collect data about factors such as the colour and intensity of cabin light (using the new colour and luminosity sensor included in the upgraded hardware), astronaut movement in the cabin (using the new PIR sensor), and temperature and humidity (using the Sense HAT add-on board’s standard sensors).
Using the camera on an Astro Pi unit when it’s positioned to view Earth from a window of the ISS, teams can investigate features on the Earth’s surface. This year, for the first time, teams had the option to use visible-light instead of infrared (IR) photography, thanks to the new Astro Pi cameras.
228 teams’ ‘Life on Earth’ experiments are running this year. Some teams are using the Astro Pis’ sensors to determine the precise location of the ISS when images are captured, to identify whether the ISS is flying over land or sea, or which country it is passing over. Other teams are using IR photography to examine plant health and the effects of deforestation in different regions. Some teams are using visible-light photography to analyse clouds, calculate the velocity of the ISS, and classify biomes (e.g. desert, forest, grassland, wetland) it is passing over. The new hardware available from this year onward has helped to encourage 144 of the teams to use machine learning techniques in their experiments.
We received 88% more idea submissions for Mission Space Lab this year compared to last year: during Phase 1, 799 teams sent us their experiment ideas. We invited 502 of the teams to proceed to Phase 2 based on the quality of their ideas. 386 teams wrote their code and submitted computer programs for their experiments during Phase 2 this year. Achieving flight status, and thus progressing to Phase 3 of Mission Space Lab, is really a huge accomplishment for the 299 successful teams.
For us, Phase 2 involved putting every team’s program through a number of tests to make sure that it follows experiment rules, doesn’t compromise the safety and security of the ISS, and will run without errors on the Astro Pi units. Testing means that April is a very busy time for us in the Astro Pi team every year. We run these tests on a number of exact replicas of the new Astro Pis, including a final test to run every experiment that has passed every test for the full 3 hours allotted to each team. The 299 experiments with flight status will run on board the ISS for over 5 weeks in total during Phase 3, and once they have started running, we can’t rely on astronaut intervention to resolve issues. So we have to make sure that all of the programs will run without any problems.
Thanks to the team at ESA, we are delighted that 67 more Mission Space Lab experiments are running on the ISS this year compared to last year. In fact, teams’ experiments using the Astro Pi units are underway right now!
The 299 teams awarded flight status this year represent 23 countries and 1205 young people, with 32% female participants and an average age of 15. Spain has the most teams with experiments progressing to Phase 3 (38), closely followed by the UK (34), Italy (27), Romania (23), and Greece (22).
Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to run every Mission Space Lab experiment submitted, as there is only limited time for the Astro Pis to be positioned in the ISS window. We wish we could run every experiment that is submitted, but unfortunately time on the ISS, especially on the nadir window, is limited. Eliminating programs was very difficult because of the high quality of this year’s submissions. Many unsuccessful teams’ programs were eliminated based on very small issues. 87 teams submitted programs this year which did not pass testing and so could not be awarded flight status.
The teams whose experiments are not progressing to Phase 3 should still be very proud to have designed experiments that passed Phase 1, and to have made a Phase 2 submission. We recognise how much work all Mission Space Lab teams have done, and we hope to see you again in next year’s Astro Pi Challenge.
Once the programs for all the experiments have run, we will send the teams the data collected by their experiments for Phase 4. In this final phase of Mission Space Lab, teams analyse their data and write a short report to describe their findings. Based on these reports, the ESA Education and Raspberry Pi Foundation teams will determine the winner of this year’s Mission Space Lab. The winning and highly commended teams will receive special prizes.
Congratulations to all Mission Space Lab teams who’ve achieved flight status! We are really looking forward to reading your reports.
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We’ve put together a new how-to guide for 3D printing and assembling your own Astro Pi unit replica, based on the upgraded units we sent to the International Space Station in December.
It wasn’t long after the first Raspberry Pi computer was launched that people started creating the first cases for it. Over the years, they’ve designed really useful ones, along with some very stylish ones. Without a doubt, the most useful and stylish one has to be the Astro Pi flight case.
This case houses the Astro Pi units, the hardware young people use when they take part in the European Astro Pi Challenge. Designed by the amazing Jon Wells for the very first Astro Pi Challenge, which was part of Tim Peake’s Principia mission to the ISS in 2015, the case has become an iconic part of the Astro Pi journey for young people.
As Jon says: “The design of the original flight case, although functional, formed an emotional connection with the young people who took part in the programme and is an engaging and integral part of the experience of the Astro Pi.”
Although printing an Astro Pi case is absolutely not essential for participating in the European Astro Pi Challenge, many of the teams of young people who participate in Astro Pi Mission Space Lab, and create experiments to run on the Astro Pi units aboard the ISS, do print Astro Pi cases to house the hardware that we send them for testing their experiments.
When we published the first how-to guide for 3D printing an Astro Pi case and making a working replica of the unit, it was immediately popular. We saw an exciting range of cases being produced. Some people (such as me) tried to make theirs look as similar as possible to the original aluminium Astro Pi flight unit, even using metallic spray paint to complete the effect. Others chose to go for a multicolour model, or even used glow-in-the-dark filament.
So it wasn’t a huge surprise that when we announced that we were sending upgraded Astro Pi units to the ISS — with cases again designed by Jon Wells — we received a flurry of requests for the files needed to 3D print these new cases.
Now that the commissioning of the new Astro Pi units, which arrived on board the International Space Station in December, is complete, we’ve been able to put together an all-new how-to guide to 3D printing your own Mark II Astro Pi case and assembling your own Astro Pi unit replica at home or in the classroom.
The guide also includes step-by-step instructions to completing the internal wiring so you can construct a working Astro Pi unit. We’re provided a custom version of the self-test software that is used on the official Astro Pis, so you can check that everything is operational.
If you’re new to 3D printing, you might like to try one of our BlocksCAD projects and practice printing a simpler design before you move on the the Astro Pi case.
We’ve made some changes to the original CAD designs to make printing the Mark II case parts and assembling a working Astro Pi replica unit as easy as possible. Unlike the STL files for the Mark I case, we’ve kept the upper and lower body components as single parts, rather than splitting each into two thinner halves. 3D printers have continued to improve since we wrote the first how-to guide. Most now have heated beds, which prevent warping, and we’ve successfully printed the Mark II parts on a range of affordable machines.
The guide contains lots of hints and tips for getting the best results. As usual with 3D printing, be prepared to make some tweaks for the particular printer that you use.
In addition to the upper and lower case parts, there are also some extra components to print this time: the colour sensor window, the joystick cap, the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera housing, and the legs that protect the lenses and allow the Astro Pi units on the ISS to be safely placed up against the nadir window.
We’ve included files for four variants of the upper case part (see above). In order to keep costs down, the kits that we send to Astro Pi Mission Space Lab teams have a different PIR sensor to the ones of the proper Astro Pi units. So we’ve produced files for upper case parts that allow that sensor to be fitted. If you’re not taking part in the European Astro Pi Challenge, this also offers a cheaper alternative to creating an Astro Pi replica which still includes the motion detection capability:
We’ve also provided versions for the upper case part that have smaller holes for the push buttons. So, if you don’t fancy splashing out on the supremely pressable authentic buttons, you can use other colourful alternatives, which typically have a smaller diameter.
Do share photos of your 3D-printed Astro Pi cases with us by tweeting pictures of them to @astro_pi and @RaspberryPi_org.
It’s still not too late for young people to take part in this year’s Astro Pi beginners’ coding activity, Mission Zero, and suggest their ideas for the names for the two new Astro Pi units! Astro Pi Mission Zero is still open until next Friday, 18 March.
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We are really excited that our two upgraded Astro Pi units have arrived on the International Space Station. Each unit contains the latest model of the Raspberry Pi computer, plus a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera and a host of sensors on a custom Sense HAT, all housed inside a special flight case designed to keep everything cool and protected. Here is the story of how the Astro Pi units were built:
The upgraded Astro Pi units have been designed and built in collaboration with ESA Education, the European Space Agency’s education programme. The Astro Pis’ purpose is for young people to use them in the European Astro Pi Challenge. The film highlights the units’ exciting new features, such as a machine learning accelerator and new camera, which can capture high-quality images of Earth from space using both visible light and near-infrared light.
There’s an extended team behind the new hardware and software, not just us working at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the European Space Agency.
“Thanks to our friends at ESA, and all the people who have shared their unique expertise and knowledge with us, […] we’ve managed to take two ordinary Raspberry Pi computers from the production line in Wales and see them end up on the International Space Station. It’s been a real privilege to get to work with such an amazing group of space professionals.”
– Richard Hayler, Senior Programme Manager and lead engineer of the Astro Pi units
The new Astro Pis are all ready to run young peoples’ computer programs as part of the European Astro Pi Challenge. The young people who successfully proposed experiments for the 2021/22 round of Astro Pi Mission Space Lab have just submitted their programs to us for testing. These programs will run the teams’ experiments on the new Astro Pis in May.
There is still time until 18 March to take part in the 2021/22 round of Astro Pi Mission Zero. Mission Zero is a beginners’ coding activity for all young people up to age 19 in ESA member and associate states. Mission Zero is free, can be completed online in an hour, and lets young people send their unique message to the astronauts on board the ISS.
To take part, participants follow our step-by-step guide to write a simple Python program. Their program will display their message to the astronautsvia the Astro Pi’s LED display (complete with ‘sunglasses’). Parents or educators support the participants by signing up for a mentor code to submit the young people’s programs.
All Mission Zero participants receive a certificate showing the exact time and location of the ISS when their program was run — their moment of space history to keep. And this year only, Mission Zero is extra special: participants can also help name the two new Astro Pi units!
You can watch ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer unpack and assemble the Astro Pi units in microgravity on board the ISS. It’s so exciting to work with the European Space Agency in order to send young people’s code into space. We hope you and your young people will take part in this year’s Astro Pi Challenge.
PS If you want to build your own replica of the Astro Pi units, we’ve got a treat for you soon. Next week, we’ll share a step-by-step how-to guide, including 3D printing files.
The post How did we build the new Astro Pi computers for the International Space Station? appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Ten years ago, Raspberry Pi started shipping its first computers in order to inspire young people to reimagine the role of technology in their lives. What started with a low-cost, high-performance computer has grown into a movement of millions of people of all ages and backgrounds.
Today, Raspberry Pi is the UK’s best-selling computer, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation is one of the world’s leading educational non-profits. Raspberry Pi computers make technology accessible to people and businesses all over the world. They are used everywhere from homes and schools to factories, offices, and shops.
To help celebrate this 10-year milestone, we’ve partnered with The National Museum of Computing, located at the historic Bletchley Park, to open a new temporary exhibit dedicated to telling the story of the Raspberry Pi computer, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and the global community of innovators, learners, and educators we’re a part of.
In the exhibit, you’ll be able to get hands-on with Raspberry Pi computers, hear the story of how Raspberry Pi came to be, and see a few of the many ways that Raspberry Pi has made an impact on the world.
We know that not everyone will be able to experience the exhibit in person, and so we’ll live-stream the grand opening this Saturday 5 March 2022 at 11:15am GMT.
If you’re able to make it to the National Museum of Computing on Saturday, tickets are available to purchase.
We’re delighted to celebrate 10 years with all of you, and we’re excited about the next 10 years of Raspberry Pi.
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This morning, our two new Astro Pi units launched into space. Actual, real-life space. The new Astro Pi units each consist of a Raspberry Pi computer with a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera and a host of sensors, all housed inside a special space-ready case that makes the hardware suitable for the International Space Station (ISS).
Today’s launch is the culmination of a huge piece of work we’ve done for the European Space Agency to get the new Astro Pi units ready to become part of the European Astro Pi Challenge.
After lift-off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the new Astro Pi units are currently travelling on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon 2 spacecraft, the module atop the rocket. You can watch the launch again here.
Also travelling with our Astro Pi units are food and some Christmas presents for the astronauts on board the ISS, materials for a study of the delivery of cancer drugs; a bioprinter for experiments investigating wound healing; and materials for a study of how detergents work in microgravity.
The Dragon 2 spacecraft will berth with the ISS tomorrow, with NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn monitoring its arrival. ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and another colleague will be there to unpack its cargo. You can watch the process of unpacking tomorrow, Wed 22 December, at 8.30am GMT / 9.30am CET. In the new year, Matthias will be switching our Astro Pi units on and getting them ready to run the code written by young people participating in the European Astro Pi Challenge. The new Astro Pi units will replace Astro Pi units Ed and Izzy, which have been on the ISS for 6 years — ever since the very first Astro Pi Challenge with British ESA astronaut Tim Peake in 2015.
We’re looking forward to seeing the amazing experiments this year’s Astro Pi Mission Space Lab teams will perform on the new hardware, and what they’ll discover about life on Earth and in space. We also can’t wait to see what the young people participating in Astro Pi Mission Zero will name the new Astro Pi units!
None of us on the team working on the Astro Pi Challenge here at the Foundation are aerospace engineers. While building the new Astro Pi units, we’ve learned so much.
To get the Astro Pis ready to be loaded onto the rocket has been a project of more than three years. That’s because, in addition to manufacturing the Astro Pi units, we also had to ensure they pass the necessary safety and certification process. The official name for this is the Safety Gate process. It’s been set up by ESA and NASA to ensure that any items sent to the ISS are safe to operate on board the station.
For the three separate safety panels the Astro Pi units needed to get through, we put the units through different tests and completed various safety reports. The tests included:
For almost all of these tests, we created custom software to do things like stress the Astro Pi units’ processors, saturate the network links, and generally make the units work as hard as possible.
To accompany these safety and test reports, we also had to create the Flight Safety Data Package (FSDP), which contains exact technical information about every component of the Astro Pi hardware, and about all the necessary safety controls to qualify the use of certain materials and safely manage operation of the units. The current FSDP paperwork stands at over 700 pages, which thankfully we haven’t had to actually print out!
All of this work culminated today in the Astro Pis being launched up into space from Cape Canaveral. And we’re doing all this so that more young people can take part in the European Astro Pi Challenge and send messages to the ISS astronauts using code as part of Mission Zero, or write code for new, ambitious experiments to run on the ISS as part of Mission Space Lab.
Young people can take part in Astro Pi Mission Zero right now! Mission Zero is a beginners’ coding activity for all young people under the age of 19 in ESA member and associate states. It gives them the chance to write code to show their own message to the astronauts on board the ISS using the Astro Pi units. And this time, Mission Zero participants can also vote to name the new Astro Pi units!
To participate, young people follow our step-by-step instructions to write their Mission Zero code. As an adult supporting a young person on Mission Zero, all you need to do is sign up as a mentor to get them a registration code for their Mission Zero entry. Once your young person’s code has run in space, we’ll send you a special certificate for them showing where the ISS, and the Astro Pi computers, were when their code ran.
Inspire a young person to learn about coding and space science today with Astro Pi Mission Zero!
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We’re feeling nostalgic because six years ago, two special Raspberry Pi computers named Ed and Izzy were travelling to the International Space Station (ISS) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. These two Astro Pi units joined British ESA astronaut Tim Peake as part of his six-month Principia space mission. Tim and Astro Pis Ed and Izzy helped hundreds of young people run their own computer programs in space as part of the first Astro Pi Challenge.
We are also feeling excited, because Tim and our Head of Youth Partnerships, Olympia Brown, are talking to British TV and radio shows today about all things space and Astro Pi, including the exciting new developments and how families can get involved! You might catch Tim on your favourite channel.
Tim says: “I had the privilege to take the first Astro Pi computers to the International Space Station in 2015. Since then, more than 50,000 children have run experiments and sent messages into orbit. The Astro Pi Challenge is a great activity for children and their parents to discover more about coding and to use digital tools to be creative.”
During his space mission, Tim Peake deployed Astro Pi units Ed and Izzy in a number of different locations on board the ISS. He was responsible for loading the Astro Pi participants’ programs onto Ed and Izzy, collecting the data they generated, and making sure it was downlinked back to Earth for the participants.
Fast forward six years, and we’re retiring Astro Pis Ed and Izzy and sending two upgraded Astro Pi units to space – in just over a week’s time, to be precise. This year, Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will be taking the helm for the Challenge on board the ISS, while Tim continues to champion the Astro Pi Challenge down here on Earth.
Thank you Tim, for inspiring so many families to get involved with STEM and coding.
To get involved in the Astro Pi Challenge, you and your young people don’t even have to wait until the new Raspberry Pi computers arrive on the ISS. You can do Astro Pi Mission Zero — the beginners’ coding activity of the European Astro Pi Challenge — today!
In Mission Zero, young people, by themselves or in a team of up to four, follow our step-by-step instructions to write the code for a simple program, which we will send up to ISS to run on the new Astro Pi units. With their program, young people take a humidity reading on board the ISS and show it to the astronauts stationed there, together with a personal message or colourful design. This beginner-friendly coding activity takes about an hour and can be done on any computer in a web browser. It’s completely free too.
As a parent (or educator), you support young people on Mission Zero by:
After a young person’s Mission Zero code has run and their message has been shown in the ISS, we’ll send you a special certificate for them so you can commemorate their space mission.
And this year, Astro Pi Mission Zero is extra special: we are asking all participants to help us name the upgraded Raspberry Pi computers that will go to live on board the ISS. We’ve created a list of renowned European scientists whose names participants can vote for, in case you need inspiration.
It’s not just young people that benefit from getting involved with the Astro Pi Challenge – it’s something the whole family will enjoy doing together. And as findings from our recent UK survey showed, parents are rediscovering their passion for science, technology, and coding through helping their kids with homework. The survey found that parents of children in primary and secondary school are far more likely than any other group of adults to enjoy learning about science, with 3 in 5 parents (62%) revealing their enthusiasm for the subject. Nearly as many parents (58%) wished they had greater knowledge of STEM from school, and 62% said they are interested in learning how to code.
“It’s wonderful to find out that parents of schoolchildren are discovering a passion for science and technology, especially after a year of home-schooling where they have been able to see first-hand what their children are learning.” says Olympia Brown, our Head of Youth Partnerships. “The Astro Pi Challenge is a fun, free, and creative way to learn about coding and carry out science experiments on board the International Space Station that both children and parents can get involved in.”
If Tim Peake and we have not convinced you how fun and inspiring the Astro Pi Challenge will be for your family, then here are some young people to tell you about their experiences. We asked learners at Linton-on-Ouse Primary School how they found taking part in this year’s Mission Zero.
This is what some of the young learners shared with us:
“I learned a bit about how to code. Everyone was very helpful. This was very fun, and I wish we can do this again. It was tricky when we tried to make the colours change.”
– A learner in Year 4
“I worked as a team by helping check all the time. Next time I want to do it on my own, because I am feeling confident.”
– A learner in Year 3
Head over to astro-pi.org to register as a Mission Zero mentor today and start coding with your children. There you’ll find all the details you need for your family space mission.
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We and our partners ESA Education are delighted to announce that for this year’s Mission Space Lab of the European Astro Pi Challenge, a record number of 800 teams from 23 countries sent us their ideas for experiments to run on board the International Space Station (ISS).
This is an incredible 83% increase from last year and means that more than 3100 young people from across Europe and other eligible countries have taken part in Phase 1 of Mission Space Lab.
Every year since 2015, thanks to our yearly Astro Pi Challenge, Mission Space Lab teams of young people have created code for their own scientific experiments to run on the ISS’s two Astro Pi units. These Astro Pi units are Raspberry Pi computers in space-proof cases, with cameras and an array of sensors. In Phase 1 of Mission Space Lab, teams submit their idea for an experiment that uses the Astro Pi hardware to investigate either the environmental conditions inside the Columbus module on the ISS, or life on the Earth’s surface.
This year, we are sending two upgraded Astro Pi units up into space to the ISS. These consist of the newest model of the Raspberry Pi computer, the newest Raspberry Pi camera, an augmented sensor board and a Coral machine learning accelerator. Young people can vote for the new Astro Pi units’ names by doing the Astro Pi beginners’ coding activity, Mission Zero.
For Mission Space Lab participants, the new hardware opens up a range of options for experiments that were not possible before. Among these are experiments using elements of artificial intelligence such as advanced machine learning, and higher-resolution photography than ever before.
It’s clear that young people are really excited about the new hardware. Not only did we see an overall increase in participating teams, but 49% of the Mission Space Lab experiment ideas that teams sent us involved machine learning.
We’ve now selected 502 teams for Phase 2 of Mission Space Lab based on the quality of their experiment ideas. Despite the fierce competition, this is 26% more teams than we were able to progress to Phase 2 last year.
All the teams we’ve selected are about to be sent a special Astro Pi hardware kit to help them write the programs for their experiments. These kits include all the components to replicate the new Astro Pi units that will travel to space in December: a Raspberry Pi 4 computer, a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera, and the same sensors that are on the Astro Pi computers on the ISS. In addition, teams conducting experiments involving machine learning will receive a Coral machine learning accelerator, and teams conducting experiments involving Infrared photography will receive a red optical filter.
Once the teams of young people have received their hardware kits, they’ll be able to familiarise themselves with the Astro Pi sensors and cameras, and then create and test (and re-test!) their code.
The teams’ deadline for submitting the code for their experiments to us is Thursday 24 February 2022. Once their code has gone through our checks and tests, it will be ready to run on the shiny new Astro Pi units on board the ISS in April or May.
Congratulations to the successful teams, and thank you to everyone who sent us their ideas for Mission Space Lab this year. And a special thank you to all the teachers, educators, club volunteers, and other wonderful people who are acting as Mission Space Lab team mentors this year. You are helping your young people do something remarkable that they will remember for the rest of their lives.
If your team was unsuccessful this time, we’re sorry for the disappointment — please try again next year.
Young people up to age 19 can also take part in Mission Zero, the beginners’ coding activity of the European Astro Pi Challenge, to vote for which European scientist they think we should name the units after. All Mission Zero entries are guaranteed to run on the ISS for 30 seconds!
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Your young people don’t need to wait to become astronauts to be part of a space mission! In Mission Zero, the free beginners’ coding activity of the European Astro Pi Challenge, young people can create a simple computer program to send to the International Space Station (ISS) today.
This year, young people taking part in Astro Pi Mission Zero have the historic chance to help name the special Raspberry Pi computers we are sending up to the ISS for the Astro Pi Challenge. Their voices will decide the names of these unique pieces of space exploration hardware.
The European Astro Pi Challenge is a collaboration by us and ESA Education. Astro Pi Mission Zero is free, open to all young people up to age 19 from eligible countries*, and it’s designed for beginner coders.
You can support participants easily, whether at home, in the classroom, or in a youth club. Simply sign up as a mentor and let your young people follow the step-by-step instructions we provide (in 19 European languages!) for writing their Mission Zero code online. Young people can complete Mission Zero in around an hour, and they don’t need any previous coding experience.
Mission Zero is the perfect coding activity for parents and their children at home, for STEM or Scouts club leaders and attendees, and for teachers and students who are new to computer programming. You don’t need any special tech for Mission Zero participants. Any computer with a web browser and internet connection works for Mission Zero, because everything is done online.
Mission Zero participants follow our step-by-step instructions to create a simple program that takes a humidity reading on board the ISS and displays it for the astronauts — together with the participants’ own unique messages. And as part of their messages, they can vote for the name of the new hardware for the Astro Pi Challenge, hardware with Raspberry Pi computers at its heart.
The new Astro Pi hardware, which will travel up in a rocket to the ISS on 21 December, is so new that these special augmented computers don’t even have names yet. Participants in Astro Pi Mission Zero get to vote for a name inspired by our list of ten renowned European scientists. Their vote will be part of the message they send to space.
Your young people’s messages to the ISS astronauts can say anything they like (apart from swear words, of course). Maybe they want to send some encouraging words to the astronauts or tell them a joke. They can even design a cool pixel art image to show on the Astro Pi hardware’s display:
Whatever else they code for their Mission Zero entry, they’re supporting the astronauts with their important work on board the ISS. Since Mission Zero participants tell the Astro Pi hardware to read and display the humidity level inside the ISS, they provide helpful information for the astronauts as they go about their tasks.
After a participant’s Mission Zero code has run and their message has been shown in the ISS, we’ll send you a special certificate for them so you can commemorate their space mission.
The certificate will feature their name, the exact date and time their code ran, and a world map to mark the place on Earth above which the ISS was while their message was visible up there in space.
If you don’t want to let any young people in your life miss out on this amazing opportunity, sign up as their Mission Zero mentor today.
* The European Astro Pi Challenge is run as a collaboration by us at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and ESA Education. That’s why participants need to be from an ESA Member State, or from Slovenia, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, or Malta, which have agreements with ESA.
If you live elsewhere, it’s possible to partner with Mission Zero mentors and young people in an eligible country. You can work together to support the young people to form international Mission Zero teams that write programs together.
If you live elsewhere and cannot partner with people in an eligible country, Mission Zero is still an awesome and inspiring project for your young people to try out coding. While these young people’s code unfortunately won’t run on the ISS, they will receive a certificate to mark their efforts.
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We’re super excited to announce that the European Astro Pi Challenge is back for another year of amazing space-based coding adventures.
This time we are delighted to tell you that we’re upgrading the Raspberry Pi computers on the International Space Station (ISS) and adding new hardware to expand the range of experiments that young people can run in space!
The first Astro Pi units were taken up to the ISS by British ESA astronaut Tim Peake in December 2015 as part of the Principia mission. Since then, 54000 young people from 26 countries have written code that has run on these specially augmented Raspberry Pi computers.
Working with our partners at the European Space Agency, we are now upgrading the Astro Pi units to include:
The units will continue to have a gyroscope; an accelerometer; a magnetometer; and humidity, temperature, and pressure sensors.
The new hardware makes it possible for teams to design new types of experiments. With the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera they can take sharper, more detailed images, and, for the first time, teams will be able to get full-colour photos of the beauty of Earth from space. This will also enable teams to investigate plant health thanks to the higher-quality optical filter in conjunction with the IR-sensitive camera. Using the Coral machine learning accelerator, teams will also be able to develop machine learning models that allow high-speed, real-time processing.
The Astro Pi units, in their space-ready cases of machined aluminium, will travel to the ISS in December on the SpaceX Dragon Cargo rocket, launching from Kennedy Space Center. Once the resupply vehicle docks with the ISS, the units will be unpacked and set up ready to run Astro Pi participants’ code in 2022.
Getting the units ready for launch has been a significant effort from lots of people. Once we worked with our friends at ESA to agree on the new features and hardware, we commissioned the design of the new case from Jon Wells. Manufacturing was made significantly more challenging by the pandemic, not least because we weren’t able to attend the factory and had to interact over video calls.
Once we had the case and hardware ready, we could take on the huge battery of tests that are required before any equipment can be used on the ISS. These included the vibration test, to ensure that the Astro Pi units would survive the rigours of the launch; thermal testing, to make sure that units wouldn’t get too hot to touch; and stringent, military-grade electromagnetic emissions and susceptibility tests to guarantee that the Astro Pi computers wouldn’t interfere with any ISS systems, and would not themselves be affected by other equipment that is on board the space station.
Huge thanks to Jon Wells and our collaborators at Airbus, Google, MidOpt, and Shearline Precision Engineering for everything they’ve done to get us to the point where we were able to ship the new Astro Pi units to the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC) in Italy for final preparations before their launch.
There are two Astro Pi missions for young people to choose from: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab. Young people can participate in one or both of the missions! Participation is free and open for young people up to age 19 in ESA member states (exceptions listed on the Astro Pi website).
In Mission Zero, young people write a simple Python program that takes a sensor reading and displays a message on the LED screen. This year, participation in Mission Zero also gives young people the opportunity to vote for the names of the two new computers. Mission Zero can be completed in around an hour and is open to anyone up to age 19. (Young children may need support with typing to do the coding activity.) Every eligible entry is guaranteed to run on board the ISS, and participants will receive an official certificate with the exact time and location of the ISS when their program ran.
Mission Zero opens today and runs until 18 March 2022.
Mission Space Lab is for teams of young people who want to run their own scientific experiments on the Astro Pi units aboard the ISS. It runs over eight months in four phases, from idea registration to data analysis.
Have a look at the winning teams from last year for amazing examples of what teams have investigated in the past. But remember — the new Astro Pi computers offer exciting new ways of investigating life in space and on Earth. We can’t wait to see what ideas participants come up with this year.
To start, Mission Space Lab team mentors just need to send us their team’s experiment idea by 29 October 2021.
You can keep updated with all of the latest Astro Pi news, including the build-up to the rocket launch in December, by following the Astro Pi Twitter account.
The post We’re sending Raspberry Pi computers to space for the European Astro Pi Challenge appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation and ESA Education are excited to announce the winners and highly commended Mission Space Lab teams of the 2020/21 European Astro Pi Challenge!
In Mission Space Lab, teams of young people aged up to 19 create scientific experiments that run on the International Space Station’s two Astro Pi computers — space-hardened Raspberry Pis with cameras and an array of sensors.
In the final phase of Mission Space Lab, teams analyse the data captured during their experiment’s three-hour runtime on the ISS and write a short report describing their experiment’s hypothesis, methods, results, and conclusions.
You can read the best reports below! From 154 final reports, the Astro Pi team has now chosen 10 winners and 5 highly commended teams that have each demonstrated great scientific merit and innovative use of the Astro Pi hardware.
Zeus from Tudor Vianu National College of Computer Science in Romania, who used photos of Earth captured by the Astro Pi’s camera, historical data sets, and machine learning to develop a weather forecast system that predicts meteorological phenomena on Earth.
Mag-AZ from Escola Secundária Domingos Rebelo in Portugal, who attempted to create an algorithm that could calculate the location of the magnetic poles of any planet or star by using the Astro Pi’s sensors to map Earth’s magnetic fields.
Atlantes from Niubit Coding Club in Spain, who used a sonification process to convert data captured by the Astro Pi’s sensors into music, inspired by Commander Chris Hadfield’s performance of Space Oddity on the ISS in 2013. You can see more about their experiment here.
Mateii from Saint Sava National College in Romania, who investigated the potential growth of Aspergillus and Penicillium mold on the ISS in comparison to on Earth using a simulation model and Astro Pi sensor readings taken inside the Columbus module.
Juno from Institut d’Altafulla in Spain, who attempted to determine how much heat the astronauts aboard the ISS experience by using temperature, pressure, and humidity data captured by the Astro Pi’s sensors together with psychrometric calculations.
Albedo from Lycée Albert Camus in France, who investigated albedo on Earth, using photos captured by the Astro Pi’s camera to classify cloud, land, and sea coverage, and analysing their corresponding albedo values.
SpaceRad from Centrum Nauki Keplera – Planetarium Wenus in Poland, who also investigated albedo (the proportion of light or radiation that is reflected by a surface) on Earth to evaluate the efficacy of using solar farms to combat climate change.
Magtrix from The Leys School in the United Kingdom, who analysed whether geographical features of Earth such as mountains affect the planet’s magnetic field using the Astro Pi’s magnetometer, GPS data, and photos of Earth captured by the Astro Pi’s camera.
Mechabot from Robone Robotics Club in Germany, who investigated how the Earth’s magnetic field correlates with its climate, and how this affects near-Earth objects’ behaviour in low-Earth orbit.
Spacepi2 from Zanneio Model High School in Greece, who investigated urbanisation on Earth by comparing photos captured by the Astro Pi’s camera with historical data using an automated photo classification program they created and NDVI analysis.
Bergson from Lycée Henri-Bergson Paris in France, who built an AI model predicting nitrogen dioxide pollution levels on Earth using NDVI analysis of photos taken by the Astro Pi’s camera.
LionTech from Mihai Eminescu National College, Oradea in Romania, who attempted to measure the velocity of the ISS in orbit, and also created an algorithm to detect smoke, pollution, and types of cloud coverage in the images they captured using the Astro Pi’s camera.
RosSpace from Ceo Boecillo in Spain, who are the third team in our list to have investigated Earth’s albedo levels in relation to global warming using photo analysis. A popular theme this year!
Jupiter from Institut d’Altafulla in Spain, who looked at variations in the current surface area of water bodies on Earth compared to historical records as an indicator of climate change.
Ultrafly from Ultrafly Coding Club in Canada, who were the youngest team to make the highly commended list this year, with an average age of 8! Their experiment explored whether the environmental variables on the ISS created allergy-friendly living conditions for the astronauts on board.
Every Astro Pi team that reached Phase 2 of Mission Space Lab by having their experiment idea accepted this year will receive participation certificates recognising their achievement, and the winners and highly commended teams will receive special certificates and an additional prize.
The prize for this year’s winners and highly commended teams is the chance to pose their questions to ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano during a webinar in September! We’ll shortly email the teams’ mentors the instructions for submitting their teams’ questions to Luca.
This Q&A event for the finalists will conclude this year’s European Astro Pi Challenge. It’s been an incredible year for the Challenge, with 15756 young people from 23 countries participating in Mission Zero or Mission Space Lab.
Everyone on the Raspberry Pi and ESA Education teams congratulates this year’s participants for their efforts, especially given the obstacles many teams had to overcome due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Thank you and congratulations to everyone who has taken part — we hope you found it as fun and inspiring as we did!
While this year’s Challenge is coming to an end, the European Astro Pi Challenge will return with both Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab in September!
We invite all teachers, educators, club leaders, and young people who love coding and space science to follow our updates on astro-pi.org and the Astro Pi Twitter account to make sure you don’t miss any announcements.
The post Amazing science from the winners of Astro Pi Mission Space Lab 2020/21 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Our team here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, in collaboration with ESA Education, is excited to announce the successful deployment of young people’s programs aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2020/21!
Across both Astro Pi missions — Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab — 14,993 participants created an amazing 9408 programs, which have now run aboard the ISS’s two special Raspberry Pi computers: the Astro Pis Izzy and Ed. Congratulations to all for their achievements during this challenging year!
This year, 14,054 young people from 24 countries successfully took part in Mission Zero: the Astro Pi computers aboard the ISS ran their programs for 30 seconds each.
In Mission Zero, young people write programs to measure the humidity inside the ISS Columbus module using the Sense HAT add-on of the Astro Pi, and then use the Sense HAT’s LED matrix to display the measurement together with their very own message to the astronauts. This year that included ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who oversaw the deployment of both the Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab programs.
To make it easier for young people to participate in Mission Zero while school closures and restrictions on face-to-face meetings were in place to help stop the spread of coronavirus, we updated the Mission Zero rules this year: for the first time, young people could take part by themselves as well as in teams. As we had hoped, this new option proved hugely popular, with 6308 entries coming from individual participants. Despite the challenging circumstances, this year’s number of Mission Zero participants was just 5% lower than last year’s — a sure sign of how much young people love Astro Pi!
In addition to the Mission Zero participants, 232 teams of in total 939 students and young people are currently in their final phase of Astro Pi Mission Space Lab. Over the last month, each team had the program for their scientific experiment run on either Astro Pi Ed or Astro Pi Izzy for three hours each.
Teams conducting ‘Life on Earth’ experiments used Astro Pi Izzy’s near-infrared camera to capture images of the planet’s surface. Their experiments include predicting weather patterns by analysing cloud formations, assessing the impact of climate change by investigating reductions in vegetation cover over time using NDVI, and studying variations in the Earth’s magnetic field.
Teams conducting ‘Life in space’ experiments used Astro Pi Ed’s sensors to investigate life inside the ISS Columbus module. Their experiments include measuring the direction and force of gravity inside the Space Station, analysing the air quality onboard, and calculating the position and direction of the Space Station in orbit.
All Mission Space Lab teams have now received their data back from the ISS so they can analyse it and summarise their findings in their final scientific reports. To grant teams enough time to complete their reports while social distancing measures may be in place, we have extended the submission deadline to 12 pm (noon) BST on Monday 28 June 2021!
Despite its relatively large size of 109 metres, the ISS only has enough sleeping pods for seven astronauts. However, sometimes there can be more than seven astronauts onboard: usually when one group prepares to leave as another arrives. Recently, a whole eleven astronauts were aboard the ISS, which meant that they had to get creative about where to settle down for sleep.
For Ed and Izzy, our Astro Pi computers, a large crowd such as this can cause some complications! For one thing, ‘crew bumping’ is more likely, which is when the USB cable connecting an Astro Pi to power can become accidentally unplugged because an astronaut collides with it in the small space of the Columbus module. And this time, the snug sleeping situation made one of the crew members request permission to cover Astro Pi Ed’s LED display during the ‘night’! Why? The astronaut was ‘bedding down’ directly opposite Ed, and the light from the display was making sleep difficult! That just goes to show that, even in space, it’s really best to avoid bright light if you need a good night’s sleep.
We and our collaborators at ESA Education have appointed a jury of experts to judge all the Mission Space Lab Phase 4 final reports and select the 10 teams with the best reports as the winners of the 2020/21 round of Mission Space Lab. Each of the 10 winning teams will receive a special prize: an invitation to a webinar with an ESA astronaut where they can directly ask them their questions about life in space!
Congratulations again to all the teams that have taken part in the European Astro Pi Challenge this year. Mission Space Lab teams, we can’t wait to read your reports!
The post Nearly 15,000 young people ran their code on the ISS for Astro Pi 2020/21! appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation and ESA Education are excited to announce that 214 teams participating in Mission Space Lab of this year’s European Astro Pi Challenge have achieved Flight Status. That means they will have their computer programs run on the International Space Station (ISS) later this month!
Mission Space Lab gives teams of students and young people up to 19 years of age the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific experiments aboard the ISS, by writing code for the Astro Pi computers — Raspberry Pi computers augmented with Sense HATs. Teams can choose between two themes for their experiments, investigating either life in space or life on Earth.
For ‘Life in space’ experiments, teams use the Astro Pi computer known as Ed to investigate life inside the Columbus module of the ISS. For example, past teams have:
In ‘Life on Earth’ experiments, teams investigate life on our home planet’s surface using the Astro Pi computer known as Izzy. Izzy’s near-infrared camera (with a blue optical filter) faces out of a window in the ISS and is pointed at Earth. For example, past teams have:
In Phase 1 of Mission Space Lab, teams only have to submit an experiment idea. Our team then judges the teams’ ideas based on their originality, feasibility, and use of hardware. This year, 426 teams submitted experiment ideas, with 396 progressing to Phase 2.
At the beginning of Phase 2 of the challenge, we send our special Astro Pi kits to the teams to help them write and test their programs. The kits contain hardware that is similar to the Astro Pi computers in space, including a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, Raspberry Pi Sense HAT, and Raspberry Pi Camera Modules (V2 and NoIR).
Mission Space Lab teams then write the programs for their experiments in Python. Once teams are happy with their programs, have tested them on their Astro Pi kits, and submitted them to us for judging, we run a series of tests on them to ensure that they follow experiment rules and can run without errors on the ISS. The experiments that meet the relevant criteria are then awarded Flight Status.
The 214 teams awarded flight status this year represent 21 countries and 862 young people, with 30% female participants. 137 teams with ‘Life on Earth’ experiments and 77 teams with ‘Life in space’ experiments have successfully made it through to Phase 3.
Spain has the most teams progressing to the next phase (26), closely followed by the UK (25), Romania (21), France (21) and Greece (18).
In the next few weeks, the teams’ experiments will be deployed to the Astro Pi computers on the ISS, and most of them will run overseen by ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who is going to fly to the ISS on 22 April on his new mission, Alpha.
In the final phase, we’ll send the teams the data their experiments collect, to analyse and write short reports about their findings. Based on these reports, we and the ESA Education experts will determine the winner of this year’s Mission Space Lab. The winning and highly commended teams will receive special prizes. Last year’s outstanding teams got to take part in a Q&A with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano!
Well done to everyone who has participated, and congratulations to all the successful teams. We are really looking forward to reading your reports!
The post 214 teams granted Flight Status for Astro Pi Mission Space Lab 2020/21! appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Do you know young people who dream of sending something to space? You can help them make that dream a reality!
We’re calling on educators, club leaders, and parents to inspire young people to develop their digital skills by participating in this year’s European Astro Pi Challenge.
The European Astro Pi Challenge, which we run in collaboration with the European Space Agency, gives young people in 26 countries* the opportunity to write their own computer programs and run them on two special Raspberry Pi units — called Astro Pis! — on board the International Space Station (ISS).
This year’s Astro Pi ambassador is ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet. Thomas will accompany our Astro Pis on the ISS and oversee young people’s programs while they run.
And the young people need your support to take part in the Astro Pi Challenge!
The Astro Pi Challenge is back and better than ever, with a brand-new website, a cool new look, and the chance for more young people to get involved.
During the last challenge, a record 6558 Astro Pi programs from over 17,000 young people ran on the ISS, and we want even more young people to take part in our new 2020/21 challenge.
So whether your children or learners are complete beginners to programming or have experience of Python coding, we’d love for them to take part!
You and your young people have two Astro Pi missions to choose from: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.
In Mission Zero, young people write a simple program to take a humidity reading onboard the ISS and communicate it to the astronauts with a personalised message, which will be displayed for 30 seconds.
Mission Zero is designed for beginners and younger participants up to 14 years old. Young people can complete Mission Zero online in about an hour following a step-by-step guide. Taking part doesn’t require any previous coding experience or specific hardware.
All Mission Zero participants who follow the simple challenge rules are guaranteed to have their programs run aboard the ISS in 2021.
All you need to do is support the young people to submit their programs!
Mission Zero is a perfect activity for beginners to digital making and Python programming, whether they’re young people at home or in coding clubs, or groups of students or club participants.
We have made some exciting changes to this year’s Mission Zero challenge:
You have until 19 March 2021 to support your young people to submit their Mission Zero programs!
In Mission Space Lab, teams of young people design and program a scientific experiment to run for 3 hours onboard the ISS.
Mission Space Lab is aimed at more experienced or older participants up to 19 years old, and it takes place in 4 phases over the course of 8 months.
Your role in Mission Space Lab is to mentor a team of participants while they design and write a program for a scientific experiment that increases our understanding of either life on Earth or life in space.
The best experiments will be deployed to the ISS, and teams will have the opportunity to analyse their experimental data and report on their results.
You have until 23 October 2020 to register your team and their experiment idea.
To see the kind of experiments young people have run on the ISS, check out our blog post congratulating the Mission Space Lab 2019/20 winners!
To find out more about taking part in the European Astro Pi Challenge 2020/21, head over to our new and improved astro-pi.org website.
There, you’ll find everything you need to get started on sending young people’s computer program to space!
* ESA Member States in 2020: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Latvia, and the United Kingdom. Other participating states: Canada, Latvia, Slovenia, Malta.
The post How young people can run their computer programs in space with Astro Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
We’ve all been able to check on our kitties’ outdoor activities for a while now, thanks to motion-activated cameras. And the internet’s favourite cat flap even live-tweets when it senses paws through the door.
“Did you already make dinner? I stopped on the way home to pick this up for you.”
But what’s eluded us “owners” of felines up until now is the ability to stop our furry companions from bringing home mauled presents we neither want nor asked for.
Now this Raspberry Pi–powered machine learning build, shared by reddit user u/eee_bume, can help us out: at its heart, there’s a convolutional neural network cascade that detects whether a cat is trying to enter a cat flap with something in its maw. (No word from the creators on how many half-consumed rodents the makers had to dispose of while training the machine learning model.)
The neural network first detects the whole cat in an image; then it hones in on the cat’s maw. Image classification is performed to detect whether there is anything in or around the maw. If the network thinks the cat is trying to smuggle caught contraband into the house, it’s a “no” from this virtual door bouncer.
The system runs on Raspberry Pi 4 with an infrared camera at an average detection rate of around 1 FPS. The PC-Val value, representing the certainty of the prey classification => prey/no_prey certainty threshold, is 0.5.
The infrared camera setup, powered by Raspberry Pi
This project formed Nicolas Baumann’s and Michael Ganz’s spring semester thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. One of the problems they ran into while trying to train their device is that cats are only expected to enter the cat flap carrying prey 3% of the time, which leads to a largely imbalanced classification problem. It would have taken a loooong time if they had just waited for Nicolas and Michael’s pets to bring home enough decomposing gifts.
The cutest mugshots you ever did see
To get around this, they custom-built a scalable image data gathering network to simplify and maximise the collection of training data. It features multiple distributed Camera Nodes (CN), a centralised main archive, and a custom labeling tool. As a result of the data gathering network, 40GB of training data have been amassed.
The makers also took the time to train their neural network to classify different types of prey. So far, it recognises mice, lizards, slow-worms, and birds.
“Come ooooon, it’s not even a *whole* mouse, let me in!”
It’s still being tweaked, but at the moment the machine learning model correctly detects when a cat has prey in its mouth 93% of the time. But it still falsely accuses kitties 28% of the time. We’ll leave it to you to decide whether your feline companion will stand for that kind of false positive rate, or whether it’s more than your job’s worth.
The post Deep learning cat prey detector appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Engineering has always been important, but never more so than now, as we face global challenges and need more brilliant young minds to solve them. Tim Peake, ESA astronaut and one of our Members, knows this well, and is a big advocate of engineering, and of STEM more broadly.
That’s why during his time aboard the International Space Station for the Principia mission, Tim was involved in the deployment of two Astro Pis, special Raspberry Pi computers that have been living on the ISS ever since, making it possible for us to run our annual European Astro Pi Challenge.
Tim spoke about the European Astro Pi Challenge at today’s award ceremony
Tim played a huge part in the first Astro Pi Challenge, and he has helped us spread the word about Astro Pi and the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation ever since.
Earlier this year, Tim was awarded the 2019 Royal Academy of Engineering Rooke Award for his work promoting engineering to the public, following a nomination by Raspberry Pi co-founder and Fellow of the Academy Pete Lomas. Pete says:
“As part of Tim Peake’s Principia mission, he personally spearheaded the largest education and outreach initiative ever undertaken by an ESA astronaut. Tim actively connects space exploration with the requirement for space engineering.
As a founder of Raspberry Pi, I was thrilled that Tim acted as a personal ambassador for the Astro Pi programme. This gives young people across Europe the opportunity to develop their computing skills by writing computer programs that run on the specially adapted Raspberry Pi computers onboard the ISS.” – Pete Lomas
Today, Tim received the Rooke Award in person, at a celebratory event held at the Science Museum in London.
Royal Academy of Engineering CEO Dr Hayaatun Sillem presents Tim with the 2019 Rooke Award for public engagement with engineering, in recognition of his nationwide promotion of engineering and space
Four hundred young people got to attend the event with him, including two winning Astro Pi teams. Congratulations to Tim, and congratulations to those Astro Pi winners who got to meet a real-life astronaut!
Since Tim’s mission on the ISS, the Astro Pi Challenge has evolved, and in collaboration with ESA Education, we now offer it in the form of two missions for young people every year:
…then help the young people in your life participate! Mission Zero is really simple and requires no prior coding knowledge, neither from you, nor from the young people in your team. Or your team could take part in Mission Space Lab — you’ve still got 10 days to send us your team’s experiment idea! And then, who knows, maybe your team will get to meet Tim Peake one day… or even become astronauts themselves!
The post Tim Peake and Astro Pi winners meet at Rooke Award ceremony appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Buzz! was a favourite amongst my university housemates and me. With popular culture questions asked by an animated Jason Donovan, answered using real-life quiz controllers with a big red button, what’s not to like?
But, as with most of the tech available in the early 2000s, my Buzz! controllers now sit in a box somewhere, dusty and forgotten.
That’s why it is so goshdarn delightful to see PiMyLifeUp breathe new life into these awesome-looking games controllers.
The tutorial uses the hidapi library to communicate with the controllers, allowing them to control functions through the Raspberry Pi, and the Raspberry Pi to control the LED within the big red button.
By the end of this tutorial, you will have learned how to read information about all your USB devices, learned how to read data that the devices are sending back and also how to write a library that will act as a simple wrapper to dealing with the device.
Aside from the Buzz! controllers, available on eBay or similar for a few pounds, you only need a Raspberry Pi and its essential peripherals to get started, as the controllers connect directly via USB — thanks, Buzz!
PiMyLifeUp’s tutorial is wonderfully detailed, explaining the hows and whys of the lines of code needed to turn your old Buzz! controllers into a quiz game written in Python that uses the coloured buttons to answer multiple-choice questions.
Guitar Hero, dance mats, Donkey Kong Bongos — what other gaming peripherals would you like to bring back to life?
The post Use PlayStation Buzz! controllers with a Raspberry Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
A simple Raspberry Pi camera setup is helping staff at the Victoria and Albert Museum track and identify insects that are threatening priceless exhibits.
“Fiacre, I need an image of bug infestation at the V&A!”
Bugs: there’s no escaping them. Whether it’s ants in your kitchen or cockroaches in your post-apocalyptic fallout shelter, insects have a habit of inconveniently infesting edifices, intent on damaging beloved belongings.
And museums are as likely as anywhere to be hit by creepy-crawly visitors. Especially when many of their exhibits are old and deliciously dusty. Yum!
As Bhavesh Shah and Maris Ines Carvalho state on the V&A blog, monitoring insect activity has become common practice at their workplace. As part of the Integrated Pest Monitoring (IPM) strategy at the museum, they even have trained staff members who inspect traps and report back their findings.
“But what if we could develop a system that gives more insight into the behaviour of insects and then use this information to prevent future outbreaks?” ask Shah and Carvalho.
The team spent around £50 on a Raspberry Pi and a 160° camera, and used these and Claude Pageau’s PI-TIMOLO software project to build an insect monitoring system. The system is now integrated into the museum, tracking insects and recording their movements — even in low-light conditions.
Emma Ormond, Raspberry Pi Trading Office Manager and Doctor of Bugs, believes this to be a Bristletail or Silverfish.
“The initial results were promising. Temperature, humidity, and light sensors could also be added to find out, for example, what time of day insects are more active or if they favour particular environmental conditions.”
For more information on the project, visit the Victoria & Albert Museum blog. And for more information on the Victoria & Albert Museum, visit the Victoria & Albert Museum, London — it’s delightful. We highly recommend attending their Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt exhibition, which is running until 24 February.
The post Monitoring insects at the Victoria and Albert Museum appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
We are excited to announce that we will host the first-ever Scratch Conference Europe in the UK this summer: from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 August at Churchill College, Cambridge!
Scratch Conference is a participatory event that gives hundreds of educators the chance to explore the creative ways in which people are programming and learning with Scratch. In even-numbered years, the conference is held at the MIT Media Lab, the birthplace of Scratch; in odd-numbered years, it takes place in other places around the globe.
Since 2019 is also the launch year of Scratch 3, we think it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to bring Scratch Conference Europe to the UK for the first time.
Join us to become part of a growing community, discover how the Raspberry Pi Foundation can support you further, and develop your skills with Scratch as a creative tool for helping your students learn to code.
Would you like to contribute your own content at the event? We are looking for you in the community to share or host:
We warmly welcome young people under 18 as content contributors; they must be supported by an adult. All content contributors will be able to attend the whole event for free.
Find more details and apply to participate in this short online form.
Tickets for Scratch Conference Europe will go on sale in April.
For updates, subscribe to Raspberry Pi LEARN, our monthly newsletter for educators, and keep an eye on @Raspberry_Pi on Twitter!
Since we’re hosting Scratch Conference Europe this year, our digital making festival Raspberry Fields will be back in 2020, even bigger and more packed with interactive family fun!
Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. It is available for free at scratch.mit.edu.
The post We’re hosting the UK’s first-ever Scratch Conference Europe appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
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