High School Junior Finds Support and Inspiration at Science Buddies

Online resources and engineering challenge help student build robotics skills and further interest in space science and aerospace engineering.

Student Fuels Passion for STEM with Science Buddies

Jayden, a junior at International Leadership of Texas, Garland High School, in Garland, TX, participates in science fairs and Science Olympiad, is currently experimenting with a way to make anode materials (used in Lithium-Ion batteries) from kiwi peels, follows the space program, and is interested in engineering.

This year, Jayden explored the building and coding of a self-driving car and independently entered the Science Buddies Engineering Challenge.

Programming a Self-Driving Car

For this year's Science Olympiad Robot Tour, Jayden needed to build a self-driving car that could autonomously navigate a track. "I had always wanted to build a robot car," says Jayden, "but I had no prior experience."

Jayden looked for online tutorials to help him get started, but finding resources that worked within the rules and with the supplies he had wasn't easy. One of the biggest problems was that many of the guides use Bluetooth. What Jayden needed was a way to build and program a self-driving car with hard-coded instructions.

"Finding good resources was a challenge," says the high school junior. "Many videos were vague, skipped important steps, and assumed too much prior knowledge. Thankfully, I eventually found the Arduino Self-Driving Car Lesson Series by Science Buddies on YouTube." (The playlist features videos that supplement the Build an Arduino Self-Driving Car lesson plan. Students interested in this as an independent project can find directions in the Build a Miniature Self-Driving Car project.)

Above: The self-driving car Jayden built and programmed.

After watching the first few videos, Jayden was able to get his robot car underway. "The [videos] were concise, clear, and easy to follow, which is exactly what I needed. Thanks to these tutorials, I learned how to use a breadboard, write the necessary code, and properly build and troubleshoot a robot car. Although it was a steep learning curve at first, the journey became much smoother because of the clear guidance from Science Buddies."

The Rocket Catcher Challenge

While using the Science Buddies website, Jayden learned about the Rocket Catcher Challenge, the 2025 iteration of the annual Science Buddies Engineering Challenge for K-12 students.

Jayden says he has always been interested in rockets and has participated in other rocketry competitions, so he was intrigued by the challenge to design a simple device to enable a vertical landing for a rocket. "The low barrier to entry caught my eye, and it seemed like a fun, simple challenge to do." His high school didn't participate in the challenge, so Jayden teamed up with a friend to develop and test their rocket-catching device.

"I have always been fascinated by the idea of rocket engines and complicated machines that could soar far beyond what I could imagine as a kid." Jayden has made model rockets, experimented with water rockets, and, at one point, made a potassium nitrate-powered rocket.

As a low-tech challenge that mostly uses paper and tape, Jayden says the Rocket Catcher Challenge was more of a puzzle than he expected. He and his teammate tried a series of designs before doing their final testing. "We attempted to use strings for our design, but they turned out to be too complicated and inconsistent. We then pivoted to a method where the rocket would slide into a hole."

Jayden says that the challenge required problem-solving and brainstorming and, ultimately, gave him "a deeper appreciation for the intricate engineering behind aerospace technology."

"I'm especially inspired by the groundbreaking work SpaceX is doing to transform space exploration," Jayden says. "Their success with reusable rockets, particularly the Falcon 9 and the development of Starship, is dramatically lowering the cost of reaching orbit and opening new possibilities that once seemed decades away."

"Beyond the technology itself, what excites me most is the spirit of ambition driving these efforts — the idea that space is no longer just the domain of governments, but a frontier where innovation, bold thinking, and determination can thrive. Watching SpaceX push boundaries makes me believe that we are closer than ever to establishing a sustainable presence beyond Earth, and it motivates me to imagine how I can one day contribute to this new era of discovery."

Jayden will be applying to colleges next year, where he plans to study engineering.

Thank you to Jayden for sharing this story with Science Buddies. If you have a story about your science project or how Science Buddies makes a difference in your classroom or program, reach out to us at scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org.

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