Session 2 Quest Narratives
This session, heroes will build a space museum, design and test toys, engineer a model spacecraft landing system, and develop a real-world solution for unsold donated clothing—then present, explain, and defend what they created. Details below!
Spark Studio — “Spark X”
Spark heroes will become museum curators, creating an immersive space museum for real visitors while practicing scientific communication, teamwork, and public speaking.
How do you turn the enormous ideas of space into something a visitor can see, experience, and understand? Heroes will explore gravity, forces, and the basics of astrophysics, then transform what they discover into an immersive space museum. They will help create exhibits, practice explaining scientific ideas in clear language, and serve as docents who guide visitors through the experience. Along the way, heroes will build teamwork, communication, audience awareness, and public speaking skills. At Exhibition, they will welcome guests and experts into Spark X and lead them through the space museum they helped create.
Lower Elementary — “Play by Design: Build It, Test It, Sell It”
Lower Elementary heroes will become industrial designers, creating and testing a real toy for potential customers while practicing engineering, product design, problem-solving, and entrepreneurship.
The Children’s Business Fair is coming in March of 2027, and Trilith is looking for a toy that will make families stop, smile, and want to try it. Heroes will learn how simple machines make toys move, then use that knowledge to create a fun, safe product of their own. Heroes will sketch ideas, build prototypes, test what works, gather feedback, and improve their designs with the customer in mind. Along the way, they will practice product design, engineering, problem-solving, collaboration, revision, and entrepreneurship as they turn an idea into something people can actually use. At Exhibition, heroes will demonstrate and pitch their finished toys, with strong designs earning the opportunity possibly to be featured at the Children’s Business Fair.
Upper Elementary — “Toys in Motion”
Upper Elementary heroes will become mechanical engineers, designing and improving a working toy for a real audience while practicing engineering, testing, problem-solving, and technical communication.
What makes a toy race, spin, balance, launch, or keep moving? Heroes will investigate force and motion, gravity, energy, friction, and balance, then use that physics to design a working toy. Working in teams, heroes will prototype, test, analyze, and revise their designs using physical materials, 3D printing, or both. They will practice engineering, problem-solving, collaboration, evidence-based decision-making, and technical communication as they improve how their toys perform. At Exhibition, heroes will demonstrate their finished toys and explain the physics behind how they work to a real audience connected to the Trilith Children’s Business Fair.
Middle School – “Countdown to Artemis IV”
Middle School heroes will become aerospace engineers, designing and testing a spacecraft landing system while practicing prototyping, data analysis, problem-solving, and evidence-based engineering.
As of September 2026, NASA and SpaceX are preparing for Artemis IV and tackling one of space exploration’s toughest engineering challenges: safely landing a massive spacecraft near the Moon’s rugged South Pole. Heroes will design a landing system that keeps a model spacecraft stable on uneven terrain and protects its payload during impact. They will use force, motion, gravity, energy, momentum, torque, friction, center of mass, and impact to make engineering decisions and explain why a landing succeeds or fails. Teams will define design requirements, build prototypes, plan tests, collect and analyze performance data, diagnose failures, and repeatedly improve their systems based on evidence. Through that process, heroes will build real-world skills in engineering design, prototyping, test planning, data analysis, failure analysis, problem-solving, iteration, collaboration, and technical communication. At Exhibition, teams will put their final landing systems through a qualification test and defend how their physics, data, and engineering decisions produced a safer, more stable design.
High School — “Clothes Less Traveled: The Second Life Project”
High School heroes will become materials engineers and consultants, developing a viable solution to a real textile-waste challenge while practicing research, budgeting, prototyping, entrepreneurship, and professional communication.
Clothes Less Traveled invites a practical challenge: what should be done with donated clothes and fabrics that cannot be sold? Heroes will use design thinking to develop a solution that is not only creative, but viable. They will research upcycling methods and markets, analyze costs, investigate partners, test assumptions, build prototypes, and revise ideas when the evidence exposes a weakness. The work demands research and market analysis, budgeting, textile fabrication, prototyping, entrepreneurship, problem-solving, collaboration, project management, and professional communication. At Exhibition, heroes will pitch a fully developed recommendation to Clothes Less Traveled and defend it with evidence, costs, partner validation, and a clear case for why it can work in the real world.