Students of Cabrini High School had the extraordinary opportunity recently to visit a half-scale model of the Mars Curiosity Rover at the University of New Orleans.
Members of the Excalibur Honor Society and students from other Honors and AP courses visited one of two models in the world that were developed by Siemens in partnership with NASA.
During the visi
t, 30 Cabrini students and 2 faculty members saw the model of the Curiosity Rover that is exploring the planet Mars. They heard a lively discussion regarding its 10 science instruments, including a laser that can analyze rocks and robotic arm that drills into the surface of the Red Planet to collect soil samples.
Speakers, who accompany Curiosity on its tour, discussed the robotic rover and its capabilities and showed videos about not only the Curiosity, but also the two previous rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, all while the students were gathered around the actual scale model.
The Cabrini group was then able to interact with a robotics team from Gulfport, MS, that was demonstrating its robots and their capabilities.
This was the first time the Curiosity Rover model has been on display in Louisiana.