Pawnee Heights USD 496 eighth graders and one sixth grader have been selected as winners in the NASA TechRise program, according to FutureEngineers.org. Future Engineers sponsored the nationwide contest in which schools could enter proposals in either Suborbital Rocket or High Altitude Balloon.

The Pawnee Heights students, under the direction of instructor David Auldridge, received their award in the suborbital rocket category by proposing a design for a coffee grinder to provide astronauts with fresh coffee while in space.

The class at Pawnee Heights will receive a prize of $1,500 with which to build their experiment and an assigned spot to test it on a NASA sponsored suborbital flight sponsored by Blue Origin, UP Aerospace or Raven Aerostar. The Pawnee Heights class will be on the Blue Origin New Shepard launch vehicle.

The NASA TechRise Student Challenge invites students to design, build and launch experiments on suborbital rockets and high-altitude balloons. The challenge aims to inspire a deeper understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, space exploration, coding, electronics, and the value of test data.