Two Westwood-Bales teams win at Mars Rover competition

Westwood-Bales Elementary School teams the Reckshop Rovers and the Penguins of Mars captured honors at the at the University of Houston’s Mars Rover Celebration on Jan. 28, according to a press release.

The Rovers earned first place in the remote control category. Team members include Colin Madden, Christopher Hoskins, Luke Revere and Erin Vaughn.

The Penguins team of Kyle Flick, Daniel Nagle and Lucas Hopkins came in third in the remote control category.

In all, eight teams made up of fifth-grade SEARCH students spent about six weeks researching Mars, previous Mars rovers and their missions, which they used to develop a mission plan and build a rover prototype to present to judges at the Mars Rover Celebration at the University of Houston.

Teams who presented at the university include The Aqua with Zoe Stilwell; Team Ultra, made up of Nicholas Le, Cole Veloz and Price Moran; the Beast Bouncing Blue Bunnies team of Walker Conn, Mike Hermes and Logan Hayne; The Red Ones team of Allison Proulx, Casey Dinh, Maren Hamilton and Amanda Fleming; the Recken Jalepenos team of Rhianna Spong; and the Duck Rovers team of Annie Revere, Kennedy Kaufman, Andrew Lara and Race Haas.

Thomas Hamre, James Davis, Tristan Rudell, Lucas Hopkins, Erin Vaughn, Sallianne Roher and Emily Epperson were students who studied Mars but did not attend the competition.