UTC Challenger STEM Learning Center

You have been walking on trillions of crystal lattices every single day without noticing. The rocks beneath our feet in Chattanooga are just massive collections of minerals organized into precise patterns. 🔭

When you dissolve sugar in hot water, you are essentially creating a liquid version of a planet like Kepler-186f. As the water cools, those molecules lose their energy and stop moving around. They are forced to lock into rigid, repeating structures that grow into beautiful shapes we call crystals. 🚀

Try this at home to see geology in action. First, boil one cup of water and stir in three cups of sugar until it is fully dissolved. Pour your mixture into a clean glass jar. Next, shape a pipe cleaner into your favorite design and tie it to a pencil using string. Lower the pipe cleaner into the jar so it hangs without touching the sides or bottom. Leave it undisturbed overnight and watch as your own custom minerals form. 🔭

We love seeing our local families explore the building blocks of the universe just like our student mission teams do during their simulations. Share this with your Chattanooga crew if you want to help us reach every curious kid in the city.



UTC Challenger Center: http://utc.edu/challenger

Forty-seven years after the first satellite launch, humanity is now literally brushing against the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe is currently on a record-breaking mission to touch the solar corona, a feat that would be impossible without cutting-edge thermal protection. It is a stunning display of engineering that hits close to home for our local manufacturing sector here in the Scenic City, where high-heat materials and precision fabrication are key drivers of our economy. 🚀

🔭 The spacecraft utilizes a custom carbon-composite heat shield that is nearly five inches thick, allowing it to withstand extreme temperatures reaching 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

🔥 This shield keeps the sensitive instruments behind it at a comfortable room temperature, despite the probe flying through the volatile atmosphere of our closest star.

🛰️ By sampling the solar wind and magnetic fields directly, the probe is helping planetary scientists solve decades-old mysteries about why the corona is significantly hotter than the solar surface.

When our students at the UTC Challenger Center step into our mission simulators, they are learning about these exact types of engineering challenges. It shows our local families that the next aerospace engineers and thermal scientists might be sitting in a classroom in Tennessee right now. Share this with your Chattanooga crew to spread the word about the future of space exploration.



Source: NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe

The air in your kitchen is lying to you because invisible water v***r is constantly swirling around us. When air cools down, that invisible moisture clings to tiny dust particles to form clouds. You can think of it like a sponge that keeps soaking up water until it simply cannot hold any more, which is when the rain finally begins to fall. 🚀

Since we often see gray skies over the Tennessee River, here is a cozy way to explore how that works from your own kitchen. Grab a clear jar, some shaving cream, and blue food coloring to bring the meteorology lab to your table.

1. Fill your clear jar about three quarters of the way with water.

2. Add a thick, fluffy layer of shaving cream on top to represent the cloud.

3. Carefully drip blue food coloring onto the top of the shaving cream cloud.

4. Watch as the cloud becomes heavy and the blue droplets fall through the water like a summer storm in Chattanooga.

If you enjoyed this experiment, our team at the UTC Challenger STEM Learning Center offers even more ways to dive into atmospheric science during our hands-on mission simulations. Share this with your Chattanooga crew to help us reach every curious kid in the city.

At 290 degrees below zero, the methane on Titan behaves just like the water in our own Tennessee River system. While Earth relies on the water cycle to sustain life, Saturn's largest moon experiences a freezing hydrocarbon cycle where liquid methane rains down and pools into massive, dark lakes. This alien landscape remains one of the most intriguing frontiers in our solar system because it mirrors the familiar geological processes we observe right here in Chattanooga. 🚀

🔭 Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere that keeps these liquids stable on the surface.

🚀 NASA is currently preparing the Dragonfly mission, a rotorcraft that will fly across these hydrocarbon dunes and lakes to investigate prebiotic chemistry.

🔭 By studying how phase changes happen in such extreme cold, planetary scientists gain a deeper understanding of how atmospheres function across the universe.

We see similar cycles of ev***ration and precipitation right here at home, but on Titan, the ingredients for the weather are completely different. Could you have guessed this? Tell us below. Know a class that would love this? Share it.



Source Name: NASA Dragonfly Mission: https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu

Born in Karnal, India, Kalpana Chawla looked at the night sky and saw a future built on mathematics and wings. She did not just wonder about the stars; she earned her pilot license and a doctorate in aerospace engineering to reach them. Her journey took her from classroom desks to the flight deck of the Space Shuttle Columbia, where she conducted experiments that changed our understanding of microgravity. 🚀

Her dedication to science remains a guiding light for every student visiting the UTC Challenger Center. When you step into our simulators, you are walking in the footsteps of pioneers who turned physics into a career. We want the next generation of aerospace engineers to look at the Tennessee River and imagine their own trajectories launching into the orbit above our city. 🔭

If you support STEM access in the Tennessee Valley, share this post with your Chattanooga crew. Let us show our local students that their ambitions can soar as high as a shuttle mission.



Source Name: UTC Challenger Center: https://www.utc.edu/challenger

You have been using the invisible forces of the universe all morning. It turns out that everything around us is packed with tiny charges, and sometimes they decide to jump ship. When you rub two objects together, you are creating friction that moves these charges from one surface to another. This is the same electric energy that fuels the excitement at a Mocs game at UTC. You can see this force in action with a simple experiment at home. Grab a balloon and rub it against your shirt for about twenty seconds. Now, hold the balloon over small tissue paper shapes on a table and watch them dance. The extra charges on the balloon pull the paper right up against gravity. Share this with your Chattanooga crew and show us how high your tissue paper can jump.

Erlanger Health System relies on sophisticated biomedical engineering to track patient health across the Tennessee Valley. By using telemetry health monitoring, doctors can watch vital signs like heart rate and oxygen levels from across the room or even from another building. This precision technology ensures that life-saving information reaches medical teams the exact moment they need to act.

🚀 Just like the clinicians at Erlanger, our flight crews at the UTC Challenger Center prioritize patient safety through constant observation. During every simulated space mission, our student life support officers monitor vital signs to ensure the mission commander and crew stay healthy while traveling through the vacuum of space. They track key indicators to make sure everyone is safe for the journey home.

🔬 Here are three ways telemetry keeps us safe in the hospital and in the cockpit:

💻 Real-time data streams provide a constant flow of patient information to medical professionals.

📡 Wireless sensors allow patients and astronauts to move freely while their health is still being tracked.

⚡ Automated alerts signal medical teams the second a reading moves outside the safe zone.

We appreciate the hard work our local medical professionals perform every day to keep our community healthy. Share this with your Chattanooga crew if you value the incredible technology used by our local health heroes.



Source Name: https://www.erlanger.org

You have been using the physics of buoyancy all morning without even realizing it. The air in your kitchen is not the only place where density matters, especially when we look at how things move in liquid. 🚀

When you add salt to water, you are packing more molecules into the same amount of space. This makes the water denser, creating an invisible force that pushes objects upward. Just think about the heavy cargo barges you see drifting along the Tennessee River. These massive vessels stay afloat because they displace water that is dense enough to hold their immense weight, a concept we explore constantly during our simulated missions here at the UTC Challenger Center.

Try this experiment to see it in action:

1. Fill two clear glasses with water.

2. Carefully drop a raw egg into the first glass, and watch as it sinks straight to the bottom.

3. Stir four tablespoons of salt into the second glass until it dissolves completely.

4. Place your second egg into the saltwater and observe how it stays near the surface.

Share this with your Chattanooga crew to see who can get their egg to hover perfectly in the middle of the glass. We love seeing our local families take science out of the textbook and into the kitchen.

Source Name: UTC Challenger Center: https://utc.edu/challenger

Did you know that everyday objects are hiding secret stores of power? Mechanical engineering is all about harnessing energy to do work, and elastic potential energy is one of the most exciting ways to do it. When you stretch a rubber band, you are essentially saving up energy, like a battery waiting to be used. As soon as you let go, that stored potential energy instantly transforms into kinetic energy—the energy of motion! 🚀

Think of this like a NASA rocket launch. Just as a rocket requires a massive burst of energy to overcome gravity and push a payload into orbit, your mini-catapult uses the snap of a rubber band to send a small object flying. It is all about precision, force, and physics in action.

Ready to engineer your own mission? Here is how to build a mini-catapult at home:

1. Stack 7 popsicle sticks together and secure both ends tightly with rubber bands.

2. Stack 2 more sticks together and secure only one end with a rubber band.

3. Pull the two sticks apart slightly and slide the stack of 7 in between them to create a V-shape.

4. Use a rubber band to attach a plastic spoon to the top stick, then use an extra band to secure the junction where the sticks meet.

5. Place a pom-pom in the spoon, pull back, and launch!

We love seeing our future engineers in action here in the Scenic City. Try this experiment and let us know how far your payload traveled! For more hands-on challenges, check out our upcoming programs at the UTC Challenger STEM Learning Center.

What an incredible look back at a true legend of aerospace history! Katherine Johnson was a brilliant mathematician whose work was the secret engine behind NASA's success during the early Project Mercury missions. When John Glenn famously requested that Johnson verify the computer calculations for his orbital flight, he knew he was trusting the best in the business to keep him safe in the stars. 🚀

Her dedication proved that math is the ultimate superpower. Whether you are crunching numbers in a classroom or dreaming of a career in engineering, her story shows us that precision and persistence pay off. You can use those same mathematical skills to map out a path for your own future that reaches even higher than the ridges of East Ridge. 🔭

Here at the UTC Challenger Center, we love sharing stories of pioneers like Katherine Johnson with our visiting students. We believe that every student has the potential to solve the complex problems of tomorrow if they start building those skills today. We are so inspired by her legacy and proud to foster that same spirit of inquiry right here in the Scenic City.