Student teams from the Columbia Area Career Center's Columbia Aeronautics and Space Association program and various other high schools presented, demonstrated and reviewed their projects and received feedback from the engineers. Through HUNCH, students collaborate with NASA to design and create innovative hardware solutions. Columbia was represented by students from Hickman, Rock Bridge and Battle high schools and were accompanied by students from Wisconsin high schools. Nancy Hall, a NASA HUNCH regional mentor, said the program is a great opportunity for the students.

"For the past year, they have been working on projects NASA assigned them to meet our needs as we go forward and do work on the space station, the moon and Mars," Hall said. HUNCH challenges students to develop products and prototypes that are cost-effective, durable and efficient to provide them with experience in engineering, problem-solving and teamwork. After listening and conducting thorough reviews of all projects, NASA will invite the top teams from the HUNCH program to travel to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to present their final designs. Last year, two teams from Columbia Area Career Center's CASA class were invited to Houston to present, with three additional teams selected as semi-finalists.