The annual Space Elevator Conference held its first ever Family Science Fest earlier this month at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond.

A highlight of the event was “RoboQuest,” a robotics competition in which robots built by youth teams from around the Puget Sound area vied to climb a 15-foot ribbon as quickly as possible while carrying weights simulating satellite payloads.

The teams’ scores were based on the number of successful ascents and descents and the number of satellites deployed by the robotic climbers. This unique engineering challenge was not only fun for the kids involved, it also encouraged learning in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

With 12 teams competing in three different categories, the competition was fierce between the robots but friendly among the kids.

Students collaborated and competed with each other throughout the day and when the final tallies were totaled, the winners were as follows:

• In the LEGO Only Pre-built class, Bellevue-based Mindstorm Masters, came in first, with second place taken by The Brick Heads, a team from Duvall.

• In the LEGO Build on the Spot class, first place went to the Star Climbers team from Bellevue, with Sammamish-based Brit Bots claiming second.

• In the (Almost) Anything Goes class, team WASABI, from Bellevue, took first place with Woodinville’s Team 417, Swerve Robotics, coming in second.

A special Engineering Award was presented to team WASABI, which “managed to improve their robot over the course of the event, doing what engineers do best: observing what was happening, analyzing why things weren’t proceeding as expected, and tweaking both hardware and software to get the results they wanted,” according to David Schilling, lead judge of the competition.

For those curious about the space elevator, the conference offered two free SE 101 sessions during which experts on the space elevator concept and technology presented one-hour talks on the challenges of building a space elevator and the opportunities that could result from such an endeavor. Each session was followed by a brief question and answer period. And during each of the sessions, a member of the audience had a chance to test the breaking strength of a high tech Zylon tether using the same test machine used in the NASA Strong Tether Centennial Challenge.

The Family Science Fest activities ran parallel to day two of the conference’s three-day Technical Program sessions. These sessions, which took place just down the hall from the Family events, engaged scientists, engineers, students and enthusiasts in discussions of the technical, political/social, legal, economic and other issues to be solved before a space elevator can become a reality.

This year’s program focused on the very strong yet ultra-lightweight material required for a viable space elevator. Researchers from Rice University and the University of Cincinnati reported on the progress made towards producing such a material.

Later in the day, the conference attendees took a break from the technical talks to watch the RoboQuest finals and many commented positively on the design solutions the youth teams had used to tackle the very same problems that would face engineers developing an actual space elevator climber.

Next year’s Space Elevator Conference is tentatively scheduled for August of next year.

To view additional conference photos and to keep up-to-date on the details of next year’s event, visit www.spaceelevatorconference.org.