Maplewood 4th grader finalist in nationwide NASA competition

Ten-year-old Amelia Crawford really likes science, especially anything to do with rockets and space travel.

“When Amelia turned 8 she asked for a science-themed birthday party,” said her mom Lindsey Crawford. “It was all girls, and everyone wore safety goggles!”

Two years later, Amelia — now a fourth grader at Edmonds-based Maplewood Parent Cooperative School — heard about the Mars Medical Challenge, a Future Engineers competition sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) Foundation with technical support from NASA. She knew right away she had to give it a try. Aimed at K-12 students, the challenge had two divisions, teen (ages 13-19) and junior (ages 5-12).

A mission to Mars makes a moon shot look like child’s play. Not only do the distances pose extremely complex technical challenges, but there’s the human side too. NASA envisions the Mars mission as taking three years, including a year and a half on the planet itself. This means that the mission astronauts will need to live in close quarters and stay mentally and physically healthy during the deep space trip to Mars, their mission on the planet surface, and the return trip to Earth.

The Mars Medical Challenge placed these students squarely in the middle of problem-solving for this important scientific mission. Their instructions were to create a digital model of a diagnostic, preventative, first aid, emergency, surgical and/or dental object that could be 3D printed in space by Mars mission astronauts to help maintain physical health during the three-year, round-trip mission to the red planet.

After learning that NASA routinely sends physicians into space, but had never sent a dentist, Amelia zeroed in on creating a dental device that could help someone without specialized training perform dental procedures.

For her entry, Amelia designed a dental block needle guide to facilitate proper alignment of Novocain injection syringes, ensuring that the anesthetic is administered in exactly the right place. Dental blocks would be designed for each member of the Mars mission team, and stored as digital files. When needed, they could be fabricated at any time on a 3-D printer.

“According to NASA, a dental emergency is the most likely reason an astronaut would have to be pulled from a mission at the International Space Station,” Amelia said. “But with the Mars mission lasting three years, there would be no way to bring someone home to treat an abscess or other dental emergency. It would have to be treated in space, and my device makes this easier by providing a guide for exact placement of anesthetics.”

Amelia’s entry started out as one of 700 junior division designs. Advancing through the semifinals, she emerged as one of four junior division finalists. NASA announced the challenge results on March 28, and while Amelia was not the grand prize winner, as a finalist she won a Maker-Bot Replicator Mini+ 3-D Printer for her school.

“It would have been great to be the overall winner, but my big goal from the start was to win the MakerBot Replicator for Maplewood School,” she said. “It so good knowing I’m helping my classmates learn more about 3-D printing and use this new technology to bring their imaginations alive and create new things.”

— Story and photos by Larry Vogel

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