Texas Instruments and NASA Launch Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Texas Instruments (TI) and NASA launched Wednesday “The Search for STEMnauts,” a virtual scavenger hunt designed to ignite students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Each week, for the next six weeks, students in sixth through 12th grade are challenged to solve space-related puzzles for a chance to unlock virtual reward points.

The student team with the most points at the end of the challenge wins a prize pack, including TI’s new limited-edition Galaxy Gray graphing calculator, a $500 Amazon gift card, a stellar NASA swag bag and a live video chat with an astronaut.

The weekly challenges range in difficulty from beginner to advanced and introduce students to the coding and problem-solving skills NASA employees, including astronauts, use in their jobs every day.

From cracking a code using TI’s basic programming language to calculating the travel time between Earth and Mars, students will put their STEM skills to the test.

Student teams can check out where they stand, in relation to their classmates and other competing teams, by following real-time updates to the “Search for STEMnauts” leaderboard on the contest website.