Orion's Belt, The PIE Challenge, and Travel: Spring 2025 Edition
Welcome to Escape Velocity; If this is your first time here, I’m Ayaan, nice to meet you. I’m a 16-year-old space tech enthusiast (and soon-to-be engineer). I love music, play music, and play tons of volleyball. I’m also a TKS Activate Student. Enjoy your stay here, and get ready to throttle up to Escape Velocity🚀
Table of Contents
Joining Orion's Belt!
In February, I was contacted by Srinija Chukkapalli. She’s another high schooler like me trying to make an impact in the field of space exploration and astronomy. She read one of my articles and asked me if I wanted to join a nonprofit she started called Orion’s Belt as a content specialist.
Orion's Belt is a student-led organization that aims to foster a global community of astronomy enthusiasts and to encourage a love for space in the upcoming generation. Recently, we hosted a webinar with NASA engineer Stephanie Johnston, about next-gen spacesuits and careers in the aerospace industry
We also recently wrapped up our first content project: Planetary Perspectives. It’s a series of articles focused on the planets in the solar system written by the Orion’s Belt community. In fact, I wrote the article about Neptune! So far, the experience has been really fun, and the people in Orion’s Belt are amazing. I’m super excited to grow this community over the coming months!
Working on my Research Paper
I’m currently working on a paper about a lunar rover that could one day work on the lunar surface! It’s a concept designed to support astronauts on the first lunar base, with tasks like cargo movement, exploration, and setting up scientific experiments.
The PIE Challenge!
The PIE challenge is essentially a business challenge within TKS, where we form teams to try and make the best business proposal for a company. This year, TKS partnered with Verizon, and my team submitted a proposal for improving their customer service using AI! I learned a lot about tracking how money moves in a company and how CEOs make business decisions.
Travelling to India
Over the winter break into January, I travelled to India to visit family. Overall, it was great to finally reconnect with some relatives I hadn’t spoken to in years. However, travelling to India also gave me a new perspective on my life and my parents. India was fun, but to put it bluntly, it was a lot less comfortable than the life I’m used to here in California.
The air quality was terrible that time of year, and there was no avoiding the fact that many people live in poverty. I had never truly processed how dense India was before. I stayed near New Delhi, and looking back, there were people everywhere, 24/7. Very different from the suburbs of America. The trip made me feel really grateful for my parents, and I was able to understand them a little more. I was able to understand why they work so hard, and why they push me and my sister to work so hard as well.
Overall, the trip was a great experience. I enjoyed reconnecting with family, and I’m glad I was able to leave with a new perspective.
Joined the Volleyball Team!
This spring, I made the JV Boys Volleyball team at my school - We are halfway through the season and currently undefeated in our league! Super excited to keep playing with my team for the next few weeks.
Next Up: April
In April, I’m going to partake in the Earthshots, a TKS challenge to try and solve a large problem in the world, that can be solved in the next 1-2 years. The whole point is to get super real with it and try to design something that could ACTUALLY be implemented afterwards, if we choose to.
Thanks so much for reading, I’ll see you next month!