Teng Wei Rui, a 12-year-old Form 1 student, was recently named as one of the winners of the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) moon mission patch design contest.
Teng, who hails from Miri, Sarawak is one of the five winners of Tynker’s Forward to the Moon Mission Patch Design Challenge. They received over 10,000 entries internationally for the competition.
Ishhaq Ziyam, a 6th grader from Colombo, Sri Lanka, was also among the winners, as well as Neal Apte, a 3rd grader from Palo Alto, CA, USA; Madison Morgan, and 8th grader from Lewiston, ID, USA; and Paxton Summers, a 3rd grader from Baltimore, MD, USA.
“Tynker recently conducted the Forward to the Moon Mission Patch Design Coding Challenge for students across the globe. In this competition, students designed and animated a Forward to the Moon mission patch. The competition was inspired by NASA’s plans to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface by 2024,” NASA wrote in its statement.
Thanks to what he learned from his computer programming lesson at the Real Fun Learning Center in Miri, Teng was able to secure a spot in the list of winners. His trainer, Teo Yuang Teck, who is also the owner of the center, expressed how happy he was when he heard that Teng won the contest.
“I am so happy for Teng, I have always wanted to empower people like him to be makers. Our center gives them the platform and tools to help them achieve their ambitions and make an impact,” he said while speaking to New Sarawak Tribune.
In his entry, he stated there that he chose the design because he wanted to represent the Orion mission from Earth, moon, to Mars.
“I wrote ‘Go Further to our future’ because this mission represent our future to live on the moon and mars in the future,” he added.
Head over to Tynker to check out Teng’s fully animated work.
Images screenshot via Tynker
