By Bill Hardesty | [email protected]

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon. In October 2019, John Paul Sorensen, principal of Neil Armstrong Academy, challenged his students to put Lil' Neil, a small LEGO figure, into space. It took America eight years to put a man on the moon in 1969. It took the Neil Academy students two years to put Lil' Neil into space. Launch date was April 16.

"Victory. One hundred percent success," Sorensen exclaimed at the recovery site. "Victory is ours. We did it."

The Project

Neil Armstrong Academy in West Valley City is the first STEM elementary school in the district. Sorensen felt that a STEM school should think big and take a risk. At the beginning of the 2019 school year, he came up with the mission.

He asked himself if there was a grand endeavor that the entire school could work together to achieve. The answer was to take Lil' Neil into space. Lil' Neil would ride a helium balloon to about 90,000 feet, at which point the pressure inside the balloon will be greater than the outside pressure resulting in the balloon popping. After free-falling back to earth for a bit, a parachute will deploy to bring Lil' Neil home.

"I thought how cool it would be that we have our own astronaut here at the Neil Armstrong Academy," Sorensen said.

Every grade was assigned a part of the mission. The kindergarten students tested different capsule materials. First-graders were assigned parachute design. Second-graders oversaw capsule design. Third-graders worked on astronaut restraint. The fourth grade designed the rigging. The fifth and sixth grades worked on tracking and cameras.

One of Sorensen's favorite stories is about the second grade. "They were responsible for the layout of the craft itself. They had originally designed a rectangular box design. They tested it and submitted the design so it could be built. In the meantime, fifth grade was researching the tracking options and found a GPS tracker for finding the rig once it hit the ground. The only hitch was that the GPS unit only works when it is pointing up. That meant that the second grade had to redesign the rig from scratch to ensure that it would land right-side up no matter how it was dropped. Rather than being frustrated and upset, the second-graders saw this as an important new challenge. They dove in with enthusiasm and designed a rig very similar to what we are working with now."

"We have a collective commitment at our school that everyone needs to feel free to try, fail, and try again until success is achieved," Sorensen said. "Each element of the final rig has been through many iterations as success criteria have evolved and challenges have presented themselves. What could be more ‘STEM-y’ than that?"

Lil' Neil rode under a high-altitude weather balloon filled with helium. His seat was on a square rig with three cameras called the L.A.M. (LEGO Assent Module). It is made of aircraft aluminum with a pool noodle casing. The L.A.M. contained the message "He comes in Peace for All LEGO Kind."

Mission

On launch day, the weather was rainy and cloudy in the Salt Lake Valley, but at the launch site at Jeanie Stevens Park in Tremonton in northern Utah, the sky was clear. Students had to launch outside restricted air space.

Some students traveled to Tremonton to help and watch. Another helper was Cody Deskins. Deskins is a HAM radio operator and a good friend of Sorensen. He helped with the radio transmission logistics and recovery.

After filling the balloon and turning on the cameras, the students shouted the countdown. Shortly after noon, Lil' Neil floated into the blue sky. One young voice called out, "Be careful, Neil. Come back alive."

Lil' Neil ascended 112 minutes to an altitude of 111,000 feet. Just as planned, the balloon popped, and he headed back to the earth. The parachute deployed, and the flight team knew he landed in the mountains just southwest of Mantua. He traveled 24.3 miles.

Sorenson and Deskins recovered the rig. On Facebook Live, Sorensen showed the rig did precisely what it was designed to do—land flat. 

The Neil Armstrong Academy has released a YouTube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxex9lIdmI) documenting Lil' Neil's mission.