July 18: A week-long Youth On The Air (YOTA) summer camp at Carleton University in Ottawa, ON, Canada hosted an ARISS radio contact. The youths talked with Steve Bowen who answered 18 questions; 60 people on site watched the youth. Young ARISS volunteer Ruth Willet orchestrated the youths’ actions; she’d done this for last year’s group of YOTA participants, too and she wrote: “It [ARISS contact] went so wonderfully beautifully amazingly well—I’m still on a high! It never never never never gets old.” A reporter for The Canadian Amateur, the journal of the Canadian national amateur radio society, came to watch and is penning a story for an upcoming issue. The livestream to the public captured 772 viewers (and in 5 days’ time, 1,000 viewed it) at https://www.youtube.com/live/A5bXZUGifYY?feature=share&t=2567. The Italian ARISS radio telebridge station team offered a livestream of them doing transmissions to connect the youth to Steve on the mic of ARISS’s radio on the ISS; the Italians garnered 70 viewers and 3 days later, 143 views. Also, the Italians invited 50 people, members of the area astronomy group, to come to their radio station to watch. YOTA states the camp’s purpose as: to connect young amateur radio operators from North, Central, and South America through ham radio and STEM activities. During the week they launched a balloon with a ham radio payload, built electronic kits, and made amateur radio contacts on HF and VHF frequencies.
June-July: Members of the All Things Amateur Radio Association based in Lancaster, OH took on four summer outreach events with ties to ARISS, bringing, setting up and staffing a STEM trailer each time. The trailer’s hands-on exhibits feature wireless technology, ARISS, and amateur radio. ARISS Educator Diane Warner maintains the trailer’s ARISS display and said “Some teachers seem interested right now; I hope this leads them to writing ARISS education proposals.” She procured a model of the ISS to add to the display to really catch the public’s eyes. She reported on the four events and their relation to ARISS as follows:
* luncheon for leaders of area after-school education programs – described ARISS to leaders
* summer camp — mentored youth STEM activities, talked up ARISS to leaders and youth
* 5K run — exhibited ham radio and ARISS to the public, handled communications for the run
* the club’s two-day outdoor simulated emergency communications test – invited and welcomed the public to sit down to make ham radio contacts and learn about it and ARISS.
Attendees across all events totaled 43 youth and 106 adults.
ARISS Upcoming Events
July 27: Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai UAE – ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
July 30: Baltasinsky district youth, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia – ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team