Several Mars Area High School students will offer unique exhibits and more during the Mars New Year Celebration, to be held May 31-June 2 in Downtown Mars.
Senior Zachary Griffiths and sophomore Patricio Beltran will offer a Drone Zone hands-on drone learning experience. The exhibit, sponsored by Drone Addiction, will teach participants how to build and fly small drones; allow them to practice flying on a drone simulator; and to watch a pre-programmed autonomous drone exploration of a 10-by-12-foot Martian landscape created by senior Haylea Rieger and juniors Haley Alexander, Alexis Barger (project leader), Mina Beach, Nicole Newtzie and Jathan Snavely, all members of the school’s Art Club.
In addition, members of the Mars Area High School’s Gifted/Enrichment Club, designed and built a “Mars Escape Room,” which will be offered beginning at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 31, at Mars Area Public Library.
The experience will give participants 45 minutes to escape their Martians captors and launch their return journey to Earth before a fatal amount of cosmic radiation invades the Red Planet. Admission is free and sign-ups will be available at the library during the celebration.
Juniors Michael Crowley and Adrian Zugehar and sophomores Ellie Coffield, Elizabeth Long and Theodore Ruffner were awarded a Mars Planet Foundation grant to fund the project. All five students, along with seniors Mia Giglietti and Jenna Protho; junior Matthew Gourash; sophomores Brooke Burnfield, Dawson Cadamore, Chloe Ceasar, Aiden Devaney-Nance, Ellie Howell, Mia Ola, Alyssa Schulties and Abigail Scott; and, freshmen Jordan Banks, Audrey Gehm, Kyleigh Gianfrancesco, Sarah Hooper, Raghav Kalbhor, Lauren Miko, Edward Page, Max Solich, Austin Wagner, Luke Weiland and Morgan Weitzell; have been meeting both before and after school to build the Escape Room.
Also of note, Mars Area School District’s STEAM (Science Technology Engineering, Art, Mathematics) teachers and selected students (Grades 2-8) will offer an exhibit during the celebration on Saturday, June 1, and Sunday, June 2. The students will demonstrate tools and projects they have worked on throughout the school year in their STEAM classes.