A new astronomy club has been formed. Students will be meeting in room 144 on D-days during lunch to learn more about the cosmos by engaging in various entertaining activities such as building black hole illusions, building homemade planetariums, and preparing for multiple national-leveled competitions. Students will be challenged to use their knowledge in engineering, physics, and astronomy in order to prepare for multiple national-leveled

competitions while keeping up with the weekly astronomy news.

A noteworthy competition the club will be preparing for is the United States Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad. This competition is an online administered test that challenges students on their ability to solve astrophysics-based problems. Out of the few hundred applicants who take the test, approximately 50 people are invited each year to take the national-leveled USAAAO test. Both tests are difficult since they both consist of AP Physics-and Calculus-based problems. Students will be taught the basic concepts in astronomy and astrophysics to help prepare for this difficult competition.

Once students are done with competitions, the club is planning to help engage students in various projects such as homemade planetariums and solar car competitions. Students will build planetariums out of cardboard using a geodesic-shaped dome, and solar car races will be held during the springtime to help educate students on solar vehicles.

An additional competition the Astronomy Club is planning to participate in is the Human Exploration Rover Challenge. This NASA sponsored competition encourages students to engineer rovers that are able to traverse through exoplanetary conditions.

With the first upcoming meeting, students are excited to participate in this year’s astronomy club. “I think the most exciting part of the astronomy club will be participating in the Astronomy Olympiad and the NASA rover design contest,” said Tomer Witelston, a freshman who is planning to participate in the upcoming meetings. “It will be a great opportunity to have fun and test our skills in astronomy. I am expecting the astronomy club to be fun and challenging, and I am anticipating great things from the competitions.”