NASA announced the global winners for the 10 different categories in the 2024 Space Apps Challenge and they include two Canadian teams.
In a news release, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) who organize Canadian events, said that 17 Canadian cities participated in the annual space apps hackathon with 1850 Canadians participating. Globally there were 9,996 projects at 485 events.
The Canadian winners selected by NASA were the University of Regina’s Asteroid Destroyer and Western University’s WMPGang.
Western University’s WMPGang
“The WMPGang team participated in the Waterloo event and won in the ‘Best Use of Science’ category. Their winning project identified near-Earth object threats and satellite collision risk zones. Using real-time data, their Web application was designed to help protect Earth and satellites from potential space hazards.”
A Western University story said “Maximilian Vovk, Dakota Cecil, Ian Chow and Simon Van Schuylenbergh created the SkyShield app over the course of 30 hours at the event in Waterloo, Ont. in October 2024.”
“None of us had any experience with web development,” said Chow. “But we managed to build a genuinely useful app, in under two days, starting from scratch with almost no prior knowledge of web development.”
University of Regina’s Asteroid Destroyer
According to the CSA “The Asteroid Destroyer team participated in the Saskatoon event and won in the ‘Global Connection’ category. Their winning project analyzed exoplanets using machine learning and other data processing techniques. It aimed to support the Habitable Worlds Observatory by mapping exoplanets based on features like size, temperature, and distance.”
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