HAMBURG, N.Y. — A group of Frontier High School students is pushing for the Final Frontier. They're competing in a nationwide competition for NASA.
They're working as two teams to complete their projects, which they say is unusual to have two teams from the same school selected. Maddie Osburne, Julia Tufan, and Lillie Bogdan make up team one.
"We had to create a box so insects could live in a suitable habitat. When the crickets are let out of this container, Astronauts can eat them. They're so nutritious that they have more protein than fish, chicken, or beef," says Lillie Bogdan.
They're building a box that studies crickets to see if the insect or other bugs could be a sustainable food source in space. If their project is chosen, it will be sent to outer space and monitored on Earth.
It's cool to see how long of a process it took and being like, 'Oh wow, someone is going to take interest in something we made as high schoolers,'" Bogdan says.
The second group, Chloe Fisher, Mikayla Cross, and Ava Kozak, are trying to create a more Eco-friendly packaging material. They're melting dark chocolate as an outside layer. Then, mash spinach and broccoli to make a gelatin-cushiony layer inside. It replaces the foam protection used in packaging.
"One of our biggest ways of staying motivated was the support that our teacher gave us, and our mentor Gene Gordon gave us because without the continued support, they provided us, it would've been hard," says Kodzak.