On Saturday, September 5, our local FIRST LEGO League (FLL) organization hosted a Kick-off Celebration for the Into Orbit 2018-2019 season at Space Center Houston. This is Houston’s first year to be part of ACES for FIRST in Texas. Some of the team was sick and couldn’t come, but luckily one of team mascots was able to make it — BURN-E our FIRST bear!
They had competition boards set up with the Into Orbit field kits. It is awesome this year! We are thrilled about the theme! We are excited to finally have a space theme for us to compete in! If you have not seen the field, mission models, or videos, check out the Into Orbit Resources page.
Space Center Houston arranged for three NASA engineers and scientists to come and speak to teams about their projects. Andrzej Stewart, Tiffany Swarmer, and Chris Matty were excited to talk to us.
Some of our favorite highlights were their personal stories. We liked hearing about how Andrzej Stewart chose a LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 as a comfort item when he was on the HI-SEAS IV long duration mission. He built different robots and shot LEGO balls at crewmates!
Tiffany Swarmer also had a great story about making costumes for May the Fourth, Star Wars Day, with her crewmates when she was on a HI-SEAS mission.
Chris Matty had some great inspirational quotes for FLL teams including, “If you know how it works, you can make a machine do anything,” and, ” Failure is part of the process. Never give up.”
After the talks, our team went to see spaceships!
We really liked touring the Independence Plaza. We got to walk inside and explore the shuttle replica Independence.
If you live in the Houston area and missed the great Kick-off Celebration, Space Center Houston is still hosting a FIRST LEGO League Camp-In on November 2. Click here for more information.
The Moment Makers 
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