Through her work on a homemade robot, a Honokaa student has received an award from NASA.
NASA’s “You’ve Got Perseverance” award is offered quarterly to students between sixth and 12th grades who have demonstrated perseverance in their academic journeys. Awardees receive, among other things, a personalized message of congratulations sent from NASA’s Perseverance Rover, currently located near a Martian crater roughly 140 million miles away.
Haili Christian School sixth-grader Makayla Salmo was one of 11 students nationwide to receive the award in March, a little more than a month before her robotics team competes in a worldwide competition in Texas.
“I just like tech stuff, I like computers and gaming,” said Salmo, who has been in robotics for more than two years.
Alicia Hui, seventh-grade teacher and robotics coach at Haili Christian, nominated Salmo for the award and submitted an essay to NASA arguing why Salmo demonstrated perseverance.
Hui said when she first heard about the award, the first student she thought of was Salmo.
“She has tenacity,” Hui said. “She keeps working at things until she gets better and better. She’s constantly progressing for the whole journey.”
Salmo said she got into robotics during a summer school program, but added that she “wasn’t very good at it” at first. But she surprised Hui when, during a recess break, Salmo asked to be able to practice using her robotic control further instead of relaxing. Later on, Salmo started volunteering to help teach younger students how to get into robotics.
“I like doing things to help people,” Salmo said.
Meanwhile, Salmo and the other four members of her robotics team qualified in February for the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championships, a competition to be held at the end of April between elementary, middle and high school robotics teams worldwide.
“It’s the first time we’ve made it,” Hui said. “Makayla said her goal was to make it to Worlds, and we actually did it.”
As part of the award, Salmo was to receive a message from the Perseverance Rover, as well as a chat with its mission control team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Hui said the message wasn’t received live because of time zone problems, but Salmo added that the team will still send her answers to several technical questions she had about how the Perseverance Rover works.
Despite her interest in robotics, Salmo said she doesn’t want to work for NASA when she grows up.
“I want to be a teacher,” Salmo said, adding that she enjoys teaching other students about robotics.
“Maybe she’ll be a better robotics coach than me,” Hui said.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.