In what is certainly not your ordinary high school competition, students are vying for a chance to control NASA satellites through a national robotics program.

The Synchronized Position Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) constellation developed by MIT (News - Alert) and Aurora Flight Sciences were used in the Zero Robotics international student competition held in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA.

According to the Zero Robotics website, “‘Zero Robotics’ is a robotics programming competition where the robots are SPHERES satellites inside the International Space Station. Students program the satellites to play a challenging game.”

For the competition, students had write algorithms for the SPHERES satellites to accomplish tasks relevant to future space missions in the ISS' microgravity, with the objectives of positioning, docking and assembly. The team with the highest “software performance” wins the competition.

According to a tweet from NASA, and this year's winner is Team Rocket from Maryland.

“SPHERES are an excellent example of an innovative use of the International Space Station to perform cutting edge research that cannot be done anywhere else,” said Aurora's Vice President John Tylko in a press release. “We are thrilled with its new role to inspire and motivate the next generation of engineers and scientists.”

Robotics is already playing a pivotal role in sectors such as manufacturing, avionics, medicine, defense, automobile, and entertainment.

Across the globe, school districts are launching robotics programs, as it inspires students to make connections across several disciplines rather than learning topics in isolation. Robotics combines mechanical, electronic, electrical and programming skills.

A course in robotics trains and educates an individual in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Aided Manufacturing, Computer Integrated Manufacturing System and Computational Geometry.

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