Space Center Houston would like to recognize the winner of our month-long MindSumo challenge, Matthew Gaiser.
MindSumo is an online platform that allows college students the opportunity to test their skills by trying to solve problems facing companies all around the world. The challenge that Space Center Houston asked students to solve was how do we create a personal, unobtrusive CO2 (carbon dioxide) monitor for astronauts in microgravity.
Carbon dioxide can be extremely toxic in high enough concentrations. The properties of microgravities allow for CO2 pockets to develop. NASA does have systems in place to detect carbon dioxide, but we asked to students to propose improvements or new, unexplored solutions that could potential be utilized on a long duration NASA mission.
More than 8,000 students viewed our challenge and more than 50 projects were submitted. In the end, five students were awarded prizes, with Matthew Gaiser having the most complete and impressive solution.
This challenge was part of Space Center Houston’s community science effort as the Innovation Gateway. Make a contribution to research, increase your scientific understanding and immerse yourself in science, technology, engineering and math with our Innovation Gateway community science initiative. Find out all the things Space Center Houston is working on in the Innovation Gateway here.
