Art by Ellen Cochran
Blood, sweat, tears and soldering at 3 a.m. had led to this moment. Jimmy Acevedo and his team stared at the gleaming white and gold of their robot arm sailing 120,000 feet over the New Mexican desert.
They hadn’t gotten computer vision working in time for the flight, so the arm performed tasks like turning knobs, flipping switches and manipulating a hook-and-loop flap blind. The arm worked through a variety of pre-programmed operations which the team triggered through commands sent to the machine.
Leading up to this moment Acevedo had flunked out of several schools. He tried studying biomedical engineering, computer science and languages and etymology when finally, he came across the North Carolina Space Grant program.
It changed his life.
The Space Grant is a national network of colleges and universities that aims to increase opportunities for students to engage in NASA aeronautics and space projects. The program funds fellowships and scholarships for students pursuing careers in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math.
North Carolina’s program, based at North Carolina State University, has partnerships with state-wide higher-education institutions, such as Durham Technical Community College, where Acevedo was studying.
Acevedo’s faculty advisor introduced him to the Space Grant’s high-altitude ballooning competition, which is an opportunity for community college students to work in teams and create a scientific experiment that gets carried on a high-altitude balloon payload. Acevedo’s payload emulated NASA’s OSAM-1 mission that deployed a robotic spacecraft equipped with the tools to grasp, refuel and relocate a satellite to extend its life.
“The ballooning projects and the projects that North Carolina Space Grant put forward were not only extremely important for me re-falling in love with some of those subjects, but they were also major confidence boosters and pieces that showed me that I had value to bring to the table,” Acevedo said.
Community college students are much less likely to go into a STEM field than students who attend a four-year university. Eight percent of associate degrees awarded by community colleges in 2019-20 were in STEM fields, compared to 21% of bachelor’s degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The NC Space Grant programs that specifically provide opportunities for community college students aim to bring more equity to STEM fields and strengthen the growing STEM workforce in North Carolina.
“That project-based learning and that open-ended, hands-on experience is so critical and really fills a void that I think we have in higher education in America,” Acevedo said.
His participation in the ballooning competition turned into an internship, which turned into a job. He now works at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in educational outreach and STEM engagement.
Jobi Cook, associate director for NC Space Grant, said that 91.8% of students who participated in one of their programs went into STEM-related fields.
After being a part of a NC Space Grant program, Christina Koch spent 328 days in space and was a part of the first three all-woman spacewalks. Zena Cardman, another NC Space Grant recipient, was selected by NASA as a member of the 2017 Astronaut Class after conducting research in the Arctic, Idaho and Hawaii.
Many others are on the cutting edge of important STEM research, such as Hannah Kerner, who is an associate professor at Arizona State University studying how artificial intelligence can improve food security.
As the program has grown and developed, Cook says that what has improved the most is the program’s reach. The NC Space Grant was established in 1991, but it was not until 2014 that the high-altitude ballooning competition was put in place.
“In order to support NASA’s workforce pipeline, you’ve got to start earlier than when they get to college,” Cook said. “That’s why over the past 10 years we’ve really evolved in our offerings for pre-college.”
Stephanie Smith was trying to find her way at Sandhills Community College when her father encouraged her to apply for NC Space Grant.
“I figured I would save some money and also make a more informed decision about what school I wanted to go to depending on what I decided to do for that four-year degree,” Smith said.
Getting the grant allowed her to do just that, and a few years later Smith graduated from N.C. State with a degree in chemical engineering and a full-time job at United Launch Alliance. She is now working toward a master’s degree in space systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
This puts Smith in the 9% of master’s degree earners in science and engineering who started at the community college level, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
“The Space Grant and other scholarships that I received really helped enable me to financially feel comfortable going and getting an engineering degree from a university,” Smith said.
This feeling of confidence is what Rebecca Stamilio-Ehret, lead instructor of the high-altitude ballooning team at Edgecombe Community College, thinks is special about the project.
“While the science and engineering are very exciting and interesting and that definitely gets students hooked, the best thing I think about this project, after that, is that I have seen such growth in the students in their personal skills and as people,” Stamilio-Ehret said.
She gives students the opportunity to give presentations and teach their peers while working on their balloon payload. This gives them leadership and mentoring experience within the program, on top of the STEM knowledge required to complete the competition.
Stamilio-Ehret highlights one student who was originally on the fence between going into a trade, or pursuing engineering. After a short conversation, the student decided to join the high-altitude ballooning team and has already become a leader in the design of this year’s project.
“I love how excited he’s become in that aspect and I know for sure that’s giving him more confidence in the path he wants to take from here,” Stamilio-Ehret said.
Inspiring students, especially those at the community college level, to continue their STEM education is what the NC Space Grant program is all about.
“I get so excited about what I do for a living and what all my friends who are also in these space companies do and my first thought, simply put, is a bachelor’s degree is required,” Smith said.
Acevedo notes that being part of NC Space Grant not only got his foot in the door, it gave him direction and motivation in his studies.
“I definitely hope that students are able to find different parts of themselves appreciated and valuable in ways that maybe they hadn’t found in the traditional classroom environment,” Acevedo said. “I hope that other students are able to use these kinds of opportunities to visualize themselves in settings they hadn’t previously considered.”
