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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This team from University High School in Irvine, California, won the 2025 regional Oceans Science Bowl, hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From left: Nethra Iyer, Joanne Chen, Matthew Feng, Avery Hexun, Angelina Yan, and coach David Knight.NASA/JPL-Caltech The annual regional event puts students’ knowledge of ocean-related science to the test in a fast-paced academic competition.
A team of students from University High School in Irvine earned first place at a fast-paced regional academic competition focused on ocean science disciplines and hosted by NASA’S Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Eight teams from Los Angeles and Orange counties competed at the March 29 event, dubbed the Los Angeles Surf Bowl. It was the last of about 20 regional competitions held across the U.S. this year in the lead-up to the virtual National Ocean Sciences Bowl finals event in mid-May.
Santa Monica High School earned second place; Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles came in third. With its victory, University repeated its winning performance from last year. The school also won the JPL-hosted regional Science Bowl earlier this month.
Teams from all eight schools that participated in the JPL-hosted 2025 regional Ocean Sciences Bowl pose alongside volunteers and coaches.NASA/JPL-Caltech For the Ocean Sciences Bowl, teams are composed of four to five students and a coach. To prepare for the event, team members spend months answering multiple-choice questions with a “Jeopardy!”-style buzzer in just five seconds. Questions come in several categories, including biology, chemistry, geology, and physics along with related geography, technology, history, policy, and current events topics.
A question in the chemistry category might be “What chemical is the principal source of energy at many of Earth’s hydrothermal vent systems?” (It’s hydrogen sulfide.) Other questions can be considerably more challenging.
When a team member buzzes in and gives the correct answer to a multiple-choice question, the team earns a bonus question, which allows teammates to consult with one another to come up with an answer. More complicated “team challenge questions” prompt students to work together for a longer period. The theme of this year’s competition is “Sounding the Depths: Understanding Ocean Acoustics.”
University High junior Matthew Feng, a return competitor, said the team’s success felt like a payoff for hours of studying together, including on weekends. He keeps coming back to the competition partly for the sense of community and also for the personal challenge, he said. “It’s nice to compete and meet people, see people who were here last year,” Matthew added. “Pushing yourself mentally — the first year I was shaking so hard because I wasn’t used to that much adrenaline.”
Since 2000, JPL’s Public Services Office has coordinated the Los Angeles regional contest with the help of volunteers from laboratory staff and former Ocean Sciences Bowl participants in the local community. JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech.
The National Ocean Sciences Bowl is a program of the Center for Ocean Leadership at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of colleges and universities focused in part on Earth science-related education.
News Media Contact
Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov
2025-044
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Last Updated Mar 31, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA / Lillian Gipson NASA has selected three university teams to help solve 21st century aviation challenges that could transform the skies above our communities.
As part of NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI), both graduate and undergraduate students on faculty-led university teams will contribute directly to real-world flight research while gaining hands-on experience working with partners from other universities and industry.
By combining faculty expertise, student innovation, and industry experience, these three teams will advance NASA’s vision for the future of 21st century aviation.
koushik datta
NASA Project Manager
This is NASA’s eighth round of annual ULI awards. Research topics include:
New aviation systems for safer, more efficient flight operations Improved communications frequency usage for more effective and reliable information transfer Autonomous flight capabilities that could advance research in areas such as NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission “By combining faculty expertise, student innovation, and industry experience, these three teams will advance NASA’s vision for the future of 21st century aviation,” said Koushik Datta, NASA University Innovation project manager at the Agency’s Ames Research Center in California.
This eighth round of annual ULI selections would lead to awards totaling up to $20.7 million for the three teams during the next three years. For each team, the proposing university will serve as lead. The new ULI selections are:
Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida
The team will create a framework for developing trustworthy increasingly autonomous aviation safety systems, such as those that could potentially employ artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Team members include: The Pennsylvania State University in University Park; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro; University of Florida in Gainesville; Stanford University in California; Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico; and the companies Collins Aerospace of Charlotte in North Carolina; and ResilienX of Syracuse, New York.
University of Colorado Boulder
This team will investigate tools for understanding and leveraging the complex communications environment of collaborative, autonomous airspace systems.
Team members include: Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; The University of Texas at El Paso; University of Colorado in Colorado Springs; Stanford University in California; University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis, North Carolina State University in Raleigh; University of California inSanta Barbara; El Paso Community College in Texas; Durham Technical Community College in North Carolina; the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility and Sensing research partnership; the company Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company, in Manassas, Virginia; and the nonprofit Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida
This team will research continuously updating, self-diagnostic vehicle health management to enhance the safety and reliability of Advanced Air Mobility vehicles.
Team members include: Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; The University of Texas at Arlington; University of Southern California in Los Angeles; the company Collins Aerospace of Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Argonne National Laboratory.
NASA’s ULI is managed by the agency’s University Innovation project, which also includes the University Student Research Challenge and the Gateways to Blue Skies competition.
Watch the NASA Aeronautics solicitations page for the announcement of when the next opportunity will be to submit a proposal for consideration during the next round of ULI selections.
About the Author
John Gould
Aeronautics Research Mission DirectorateJohn Gould is a member of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications team at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He is dedicated to public service and NASA’s leading role in scientific exploration. Prior to working for NASA Aeronautics, he was a spaceflight historian and writer, having a lifelong passion for space and aviation.
Facebook logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Instagram logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Linkedin logo @NASA Explore More
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A team from University High School of Irvine, California, won the 2025 regional Science Bowl at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on March 1. From left, co-coach Nick Brighton, sophomores Shloke Kamat and Timothy Chen, juniors Feodor Yevtushenko and Angelina Yan, senior Sara Yu, and coach David Knight.NASA/JPL-Caltech In a fast-paced competition, students showcased their knowledge across a wide range of science and math topics.
What is the molecular geometry of sulfur tetrafluoride? Which layer of the Sun is thickest? What is the average of the first 10 prime numbers? If you answered “see-saw,” “radiation zone,” and “12.9,” respectively, then you know a tiny fraction of what high school students must learn to compete successfully in the National Science Bowl.
On Saturday, March 1, students from University High School in Irvine answered enough of these kind of challenging questions correctly to earn the points to defeat 19 other high school teams, winning a regional Science Bowl competition hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Troy High, from Fullerton, won second place, while Arcadia High placed third.
Some 100 students gathered at JPL for the fast-paced event, which drew schools from across Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties. Teams are composed of four students and one alternate, with a teacher serving as coach. Two teams at a time face off in a round robin tournament, followed by tie-breaker and double-elimination rounds, then final matches.
Students, coaches, and volunteers gathered on March 1 for the annual regional Science Bowl competition held at JPL, which has hosted the event since 1993.NASA/JPL-Caltech The questions — in biology, chemistry, Earth and space science, energy, mathematics, and physics — are at a college first-year level. Students spend months preparing, studying, quizzing each other, and practicing with “Jeopardy!”-style buzzers.
It was the third year in a row for a University victory at the JPL-hosted event, and the championship round with Troy was a nail-biter until the very last question. The University team only had one returning student from the previous year’s team, junior Feodor Yevtushenko. Both he and longtime team coach and science teacher David Knight said the key to success is specialization — with each student focusing on particular topic areas.
“I wake up and grind math before school,” Feodor said. “Being a jack-of-all-trades means you’re a jack-of-no-trades. You need ruthless precision and ruthless speed.”
University also won for four years in row from 2018 to 2021. The school’s victory this year enables its team to travel to Washington in late April and vie for ultimate dominance alongside other regional event winners in the national finals.
More than 10,000 students compete in some 115 regional events held across the country. Managed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Bowl was created in 1991 to make math and science fun for students, and to encourage them to pursue careers in those fields. It’s one of the largest academic competitions in the United States.
JPL’s Public Services Office coordinates the regional contest with the help of volunteers from laboratory staff and former Science Bowl participants in the local community. This year marked JPL’s 33rd hosting the event.
News Media Contact
Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov
2025-030
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Last Updated Mar 03, 2025 Related Terms
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