Andreas Tuerke (15) applied on 19th of December 2012 on the participation in the NASA moon buggy competition 2013 over schuelerjobs.de. Andreas comes from the region around Dessau and attends a high school in Dessau. In his free time he programms with C++, Pascal and Delphi 5. He participates a ham radio work group. You can hear him at the school radio station DK0LG or with the call sign for education DN4JH. Andreas wants to receive an amateur license and solders his own hardware. He can play the piano and the organ. Between 27th and 30th of December 2012 he participated in the NASA briefing in Leipzig and learned a lot about what awaits her in this way. He could complete all areas in which he himself had demanded with very good results. These included: Moon Buggy training, CAD course, building a mini buggy out of stainless steel, writing a separate report, introduced into the team, organizing the daily schedule. Below appears the first report of Andreas.

The transparent representation and reflection of the experienced and learned serves to consolidate and classification of the acquired knowledge and new skills. In the course of one or more years such a reference of Andreas development appears which helps especially himself. Also supporters and sponsors like to keep an eye on such, in order to take positive impact on the respective student.

Andreas has already decided together with his mother and aunt to participate at the NASA competition. Andreas also would like to get with the NASA competition a scienecepropaedeutic work for graduation. We recommend the co-work at NASA telemtry team together with Tobias Volte (17) and the developement of a multidata telemetry system for the moonbuggies and also the development of an analysis software for following solidity calculation.

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from Andreas Tuerke, Leipzig, 12/28/2012

When I arrived, at the first I met the other participants of this workshop, but there still was silence between the others and me. Then Mr. Heckel asked us to introduce ourselves and I got a first impression of the others.

The other participants are Nicolas, 15, from Rhineland-Palatinate, who grew up in the USA und is able to talk in three languages. Jasmin, 17, comes from the region around Leipzig and wants to study plastics engineering. Monika is 15 years old, lives near Dortmund and is an experienced athlete.

Later Tobias (an experienced moonbuggy-driver, 16) led us around and we got first insights in the technology and the things made here and I have to say, I was very impressed. While having diner the others and me became better acquainted. The movie we watched was a successful completion. This movie was produced in the USA, originally commented by Tom Hanks and was about the moon-landing and its future, so that the first day ended very nice.

However, the climax was the second day. First Nadine (moonbuggy-pilot and astronomer, 18) presented us very well and lucidly the whole project. From this moment I understood the project much better. Then we started driving the moonbuggies. At the beginning it was quite exhausting and a little bit strange, but after driving around for a few minutes, I got used to it and I had a lot of fun. When I drove alone on the moonbuggy, I tried to jump over the small skater-hills. There I had a queasy feeling, but only for a few tries. Then it also started being fun. At the same time we were accompanied by a camera-team.

Everything became much better, when I began to drive together with Jasmin on the moonbuggy. At the first we drove the circa one kilometre long circuit. That was very exhausting. After that we had a break. Then we drove a second lap, but Mr. Heckel chronometered this one. After that we went to the off-road part of the park. Our first try to drive trough the sand was a failure, but whenever we tried it again, we became better and better.

Then Jasmin and I tried the small hills of the skater-parks and it was a lot of fun.  

After that we tried to reach the top of the big hill. That was the most exhausting part of this day, but it was worth it. And because you cannot stay forever on the top of this hill, we went back down. It was a breathtaking experience and we became very fast. That is why we did this again for three times. We wanted to do this more often, but we had not enough power. So we went back to the skater-hills and did some awesome jumps.

In conclusion it was an awesome experience and a lot of fun and I have to advise everyone to try it, because you do not have this chance lots of times. And only because of this experience it was worth it to go to this workshop. That is how the second day ended up.

On day three we did a tour trough Leipzig after having breakfast. Our first destination was the place of birth of Prof. Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer, the longest-serving NASA-employee, who dies on December 27th 2012. There Mr. Heckel explained us, how Prof. Dr. Puttkamer lived when he was young. Then we visited some firms and the Leipzig Trade Fair and Mr. Heckel showed us the area.

Finally we went to the BMW factory premises, which was closed because of company holiday. It still was very impressing, because the area for production is very huge. After research found out that this area is as big as 320 football pitches and that ca. 720 cars can be produced by that factory per day.

That still was not everything. So went to the observatory Kletzen in Krostitz, near Leipzig. That is a special observatory, because it is self built by Henri Schulz. He built up the building and the telescope and I have been very impressed. 

After our excursion we went back to the Space Hotel and in the evening we built up our own moonbuggy. It was not a buggy to participate at the NASA Great Moonbuggy Race, but a small one to place it on a shelf. It was very complicated, because we had to press out each part of the buggy and this mini-moonbuggy is made of 2mm thick stainless steal and the parts are cut out with a laser. But when I hold this moonbuggy in my hands, I have been very proud. It was a grandiose ending for the third day.

On the fourth, the last, day Monika and I participated at the CAD-course led by Evgeniy Zakutin, a Russian aviation and aerospace engineer. He showed us, how to use a CAD-program to create the parts for the moonbuggy. When I did it, I have been very proud. Unfortunately the others and I had to depart after that.

However, in conclusion this workshop was a success and now I am support of the moonbuggies and I have to say it again that this project is really awesome.