​KAILUA-KONA – Kealakehe High School’s student engineering team is representing Hawai‘i in NASA’s prestigious Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC), making them the state’s sole contender among 75 global teams. 

This international competition, set for April 2025 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., challenges students to design and build human-powered rovers capable of navigating simulated extraterrestrial terrains. The competition will bring together 75 teams from 20 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and 16 countries.

Kealakehe’s students recently presented their latest rover design to a NASA panel, marking a significant milestone as they transition to building a prototype for testing.

For Kealakehe students, the competition is an opportunity to showcase their ingenuity on an international stage. Junior Ailani Cruz reflected on the team’s recent design presentation: “Being up there and presenting the slides, it really felt like a very proud moment because we were like, this is the work we've done and this is what we have to show for it, and we can't wait to show you guys more.”

Junior Azalea Thorpe shared her enthusiasm for the challenge: “I really like aerospace and a lot of space-related stuff, so this was a really big opportunity for us to try something new as a Hawai‘i team who recently just made robots and competed in other competitions not as complex as this.”

The program not only hones technical skills but also strengthens connections to Hawai‘i’s rich history of exploration. Justin Brown, Kealakehe’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) and robotics coordinator, emphasized the importance of providing local students with high-level opportunities.

“The inventiveness, the exploration, the curiosity – they have that, and we're in a place that obviously has a lot of connections to explorers. You know, Ellison Onizuka to what happened with Hōkūle‘a – exploring and understanding new frontiers is at the heart of the Big Island.”

“Every astronaut trains here on the Big Island. Like, where’s our aerospace connection for our local students?" Brown added. "We want them to come from our local public schools. So we have to find opportunities like this where they can build those high-level analog skills and technical writing, design, fabrication, coding, teamwork, collaboration.”

The NASA HERC competition immerses students in hands-on engineering while promoting real-world skills such as problem-solving, collaboration and technical communication. Students independently design, build and test their rovers, with points awarded for design reviews, rover performance, and successful navigation of course challenges.

Kealakehe High’s team is now hard at work building their prototype, preparing to represent Hawai‘i on a global stage.

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