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Introducing Girls to Careers in Computer Science and Aerospace at GETT 2019

Over the weekend Gabby and I participated in GETT 2019 and talked about satellites with almost 1,000 girls from middle and high schools across the Philadelphia area. GETT (Girls Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology) is an annual event staffed by volunteers from a broad range of technology and science oriented organizations. The goal is to expose STEM careers to young women through hands-on exploration. This is the third year Cesium has been apart of the event.

Spacebook, built on CesiumJS, shows students a catelog of almost 18,000 objects in orbit above the earth

We showed off an app that we built tracking the location of the International Space Station. The app uses CZML to update the space station’s location in real time and features a glTF model of it that you can zoom in on to see details like the solar panels and the modules where the astronauts live and conduct their research.

A look at Cesium tracking the International Space Station

Our friends at AGI also demonstrated the Spacebook app to show the girls how many satellites are in space, and used the Satellite AR mobile app to help them track which satellites were overhead.

Gabby explains different parts of the International Space Station as a student explores the glTF model in Cesium

Gabby and I had a blast sharing our experiences as software developers and talking about the inspiring women in computer science, aerospace engineering, and the two women astronauts that are currently aboard the space station. We look forward to helping out again next year and getting more girls excited about science!