The European Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA Education project run in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is back for another year and registration is now open for both missions: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.
In Mission Zero, young people design pixel art inspired by nature to display on the Astro Pi computers on board the International Space Station (ISS). Using Python programming, they will learn to code with variables and use the colour sensors on the Astro Pis to change the background color in their pixel images. Working individually or in teams of up to four people, young people have the chance to get really creative and code beautiful images of life on Earth and beyond.
For Python coded, provided is a step-by-step project guide that takes teams through the whole activity, and which includes example images and code for your team to get started with. What will your team design for their submission? For inspiration, you can see examples and images that were submitted by teams taking part in Mission Zero in 2023-24 in the project guide. If python is too challenging the possibility to use block programming to get started with Mission Zero will soon be available.
This year, the possibility to save your teams’ progress for Mission Zero has been added. This will make it easier to run the activity over more than one session and also means that teams can finish their projects at different times and locations. They will need to use the classroom code and their team name to load draft projects.
In Mission Space Lab, teams of two to six young people are given a real-world scientific problem to investigate in space. The challenge this year is to calculate the speed at which the ISS is traveling at a given moment, as accurately as possible. Teams will need to write a Python program that collects data from the Astro Pi computers on the ISS and uses this data to calculate the speed. Teams can use the Astro Pi sensors or camera to gather their data about the orientation and motion of the ISS as it orbits the Earth.
This year, a new way for teams to test their programs has been created, with an online version of the Astro Pi Replay tool. All teams need do is select their program and the Astro Pi Replay tool will run a real-time simulation of their program running on the ISS using historical data and images. It will also show program outputs and report errors. This means teams can code their program in their preferred IDE, then test it online. However, if wished, teams can still run the Astro Pi Replay tool offline with Thonny.
