The Journey to a New World

Eve is an ordinary 12-year-old, but her life is not so ordinary. Eve is on a journey to a new planet with her family. Eve enjoys life on the spacecraft, the Vestigo. Eve and 73 other people are traveling on the Vestigo to a new planet, Athena (goddess of civilization).

The Vestigo has 4 floors and is 800 feet long. There are 76 rooms -bedrooms, play areas, laboratories, and a cafeteria.

“Eve, wake up!” called her mother. “Your science club meeting is today. Your teacher is assigning a special project.”

Eve grunted in response. She groggily got dressed, and ran to the cafeteria to meet her friends.

“Hi guys!” said Eve.

“Hey!” said her friend Jo. “What are you doing today?”

“Well,” said Eve “I have a science club meeting this morning.”

“Sounds interesting!” said Jo. “Me and Gracie are going to Annie’s birthday party!”

“Cool!” responded Eve. “ I’d love to go but I promised my parents I would not miss this meeting. Gotta go or I’ll be late!” She grabbed a muffin and hurried out of the room.

Eve’s science club is for creative children. Today, the teacher discussed how experts solve real world problems. “...and that’s today’s lesson!” said the teacher. “For our next project you must invent something that could help out the ship! Pick a problem - you have two weeks to research and find a solution. It’s not a lot of time so let’s discuss some ideas.

“I’m going to make a solution for water waste” said Robert eagerly. “Did you know that toilets on our ship waste 3 gallons every flush!?”

“I'm going to make a way to reuse plastic!” said Cam.

Eve listened to some ideas but nothing came into mind.

After the club meeting, Eve worried about what to do for her project. She took a trip to the library, which had thousands of books - surely one could give her ideas! Eve walked through an aisle with books titled “Engineer Buddies- Kids Who Dream of Becoming Engineers”. Eve grabbed one and sat down on a bean bag chair. She read through the first chapters and learned about the engineering design process. Suddenly, her reading was interrupted by the ship's siren.

“We have run into a crowd of space debris” said the captain at the front of the ship. “The debris punctured a whole in the engine.”

Many people gasped. The captain continued. “We ask that none of you panic. Once we saw the hole, we immediately got our ship’s engineers to work fixing the damage. We need everyone to return to their rooms while we finish the repairs.”

Back in her room, Eve still had the Engineer Buddy book in her hands. She thought about the Engineering Design Process - Ask, Imagine, Design, Create, Improve, and Present. Maybe it could be used to prevent future space debris holes. First, she thought about “ask”. The problem was simple- how to prevent space debris from creating holes in the ship? Second, she brainstormed about “imagine” and wrote her ideas down. She thought about adding protective layers to the ship, but knew the best idea was a sensor that could detect debris so the captain could steer away before it hit. Happy with her idea, Eve sketched detailed pictures of the sensor for “design”. Soon her room was covered in paper.

After the captain alerted everyone that they could leave their rooms, Eve went to find an engineer for help with the “create” step.

“Hello, Eve” said Dr. Plum. “What can I help you with?”

Eve showed Dr. Plum some of her sketches to see if he could construct a model sensor.

Dr. Plum showed Eve some test sensors he made in the past to get some ideas and explained to her how each of the parts worked. Once they agreed on a type, they built a test sensor. Eve pushed some marbles along the table but the sensor did not detect them. They quickly figured out that the sensor was not powerful enough.

Eve was disappointed but Dr. Plum reminded her this is part of the “make it better” step of the design process. He suggested that they use different parts to improve the sensor’s power. Eve made edits to her sketches. The crafting took a long week and a half, then, finally, the sensor was complete. Eve went to her teacher to show her the sensor for her science club project. Her teacher loved it so much that she suggested presenting it to everybody on the ship! That evening, people gathered in the atrium to see Eve’s presentation. When Dr. Plum dimmed the lights, Eve cleared her throat.

“Hello everybody” she said. “I’m sure all of you are relieved that the ship is fixed.” Eve hesitated. She saw her parents sitting in the audience, then continued. “After that, I worked with Dr. Plum to come up with a solution to space debris. Eve showed them the sensor. She explained how the sensor worked and how it could help the ship if Dr. Plum created bigger models and attached them all over the ship. Everyone was excited.

After the presentation, Eve put on a space suit, hooked herself to the ship, and jumped into space to stare at stars. The tiny glowing dots filled the sky. Eve thought about her life and realized that it was not the same as most girls.