Housing for an inhabitant on... Mars?

At HackSpace 2016 - the first space hackathon event in Israel, a host of creative ideas and original initiatives for studying space science were presented

Last Thursday (July 7, 2016) the space hackathon event, the first of its kind in Israel, was held at the Google Tel Aviv campus. For a whole day, the best minds of space seekers from different fields united: educators, scientists, entrepreneurs, makers, designers, researchers, academia and industry, all of whom have in common the love of space. The hackathon, initiated by the Ramon Foundation, the SpaceIL association, the Israel Space Agency and funded by the Heinlein Foundation, is designed to create think tanks on creative and interesting ideas that can be brought to the formal and informal education system, to make the subject accessible and expose more and more students to the fascinating field.

The hackathon was divided into 4 different areas in which thinking was held on making topics, simple and sophisticated applications, videos and educational challenges for the class. Among the products that the participants devised were a means of illustrating a lack of gravity (microgravity) in space in the form of a device consisting of a Go Pro camera, a bottle and balloons; A dance class based, choreographically, on the intervals of the planets and a variety of videos, which simplify topics such as: solar eclipses, moon shows and more.
In addition, the groups were engaged in thinking about food production in a colony on Mars, developing an urban environment and a human colony on Mars, designing a vehicle driven by a propeller, developing lesson plans on the movements of the stars, developing a facility to preserve plants in extreme conditions, viewing and understanding the map of the stars, and more.

Peretz Vezan, Director General of the Ministry of Science, greeted the participants and said: "The Ministry of Science, Technology and Space and the Israel Space Agency have been working in recent years with many partners in the field of space education, professional institutions, partners in the path and vision - to make the topic of space accessible to a variety of audiences, to deepen the The understanding of the importance of the space field and its great influence on everyday life."

Dr. Eran Pribman, CEO of SpaceIL: "The space hackathon is another layer in the activity of the SpaceIL association to promote education on space and science in Israel. It was exciting to see at the event a variety of motivated people to instill the inherent love of space in the younger generation, who are the future of Israel's space industry."

Ran Levana, CEO of the Ramon Foundation: "The Ramon Foundation has set itself the goal of creating a 'scene' for space studies in Israel. We are happy with the event, and know that the products created at the hackathon will be incorporated into our curricula at the beginning of the next school year. The community created at the event, which includes engineers, researchers and teachers who set themselves the goal of inspiring youth through space, will only grow in the future."