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Engineering Together
ASME Mentorship in the NASA HUNCH Program.
Written by Wyatt Steffanus and Matt Heer
The 2025 Platteville HUNCH group poses with a Saturn V Rocket at Johnson Space Center’s Rocket Park. Photo: University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Chapter
HIGH SCHOOLS UNITED WITH NASA TO CREATE HARDWARE (HUNCH) launched in 2002 as a partnership between NASA and local high schools. HUNCH’s vision was to foster innovation and problem-solving in new generations. Over the past two decades, the NASA HUNCH program has expanded to 38 states, entered 571 classrooms, and sent 3,123 items to the International Space Station (ISS) from classroom settings.
The 2026 Platteville HUNCH group stands with an astronaut candidate as they train in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at Johnson Space Center. Photo: University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Chapter
The NASA HUNCH Program
According to NASA, “NASA HUNCH empowers students to develop essential 21st-century skills—such as critical thinking, collaboration, and technical expertise—by tackling authentic challenges sourced directly from NASA’s ongoing missions.” These challenges let students work alongside NASA professionals to create solutions for the ISS and Moon-to-Mars Initiative, ensuring their time and effort directly contribute to the future of space exploration.
Within HUNCH, there are nine programs: Culinary, Biomedical Science, Software/Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Flight Configuration, Video and Media, Design and Prototyping, NASA HUNCH Academy (for K-8 grades), and Soft Goods. Each program structures its projects in specified fields for students to pursue in their problem-solving process. These sections establish a broad scope of interests for students to pursue their interests.
While preparing for travel at Johnson Space Center’s Ellington Field, the Super Guppy stopped for a photo op with the 2026 Platteville HUNCH group. Photo: University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Chapter
HUNCH for Platteville High School
At Platteville High School, we take a second-person view of the Design and Prototyping program before ASME joins in collaboration.
Imagine walking into your high school extracurricular on a cool fall morning. Today is the first day of the NASA HUNCH Design and Prototyping program. You have heard about this club from the High School Physics teacher, Mr. Heer, and the opportunity to participate in projects and see NASA was too enticing to ignore. You find your friends and group together.
From conversations, you learn that students from all over the nation are gearing up to take on real NASA challenges. On the HUNCH Design and Prototype website, the club looks at all the new projects for this year; each project holds an initial problem brief, design constraints, and success criteria. Your group agrees on a single project: creating a lunar landing prototype that can safely absorb ground impact and release a payload. You go home after the first meeting feeling excited for next week’s meeting—this is not another learning task, but a new facet for growth!
Platteville High School Students working with University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Student Members at the university’s Huff Family Innovation Center. Photo: University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Chapter
A few weeks have passed, and your group has spent time researching designs, meeting with NASA personnel for tips and insight, and fabricating prototypes with your teacher’s help. Ideas are sketched, and your team’s prototype is taking form. After a couple of monthly meetings with your NASA mentor, your team has begun documenting your journey in a presentation format that you will deliver to NASA engineers at the Preliminary Design Review (PDR). At this stage, you may not have a working prototype, but you receive vital feedback on your project from NASA engineers to refine your ideas. In this time, your group has experienced many setbacks, challenges, and uncertain feelings toward your solving process and fabrication skills.
The next major review occurs months later in the Critical Design Review (CDR). Here, your presentation is documented on a trifold, which will be given to NASA engineers, teachers, and industry professionals. As the CDR closes, your team feels a wash of relief; the presentation went great, and you have been chosen as a finalist to present at the Johnson Space Center. Your team then finalizes designs with the tips you were given at the CDR.
You realize just how impactful this club has been as you set up next to a real Saturn V rocket and highlight your working prototype. NASA Employees, teachers, other groups, and maybe even an astronaut or two wander between groups to pose questions, give comments, and praise your work—you have indeed reached for the stars with this one.
A group of Platteville HUNCH students collaborating on prototype designs at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s Huff Family Innovation Center. Photo: University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Chapter
NASA HUNCH with ASME
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UWP) ASME Chapter first heard of NASA HUNCH while listening to the Platteville High School teacher, Matt Heer, at a makerspace event on campus. ASME’s conversation between the organization and Heer proved to be the catalyst for our collaboration. Heer’s enthusiasm for the program and his vision for what it could offer students sparked interest among our members. Furthermore, his continued involvement has helped bridge the gap between our organization and HUNCH’s mission to “empower and inspire students through a Project-Based Learning program… ”
In ASME’s collaboration, our members mentor high school students through the engineering process as they work on solving NASA’s projects. Several members are assigned to student groups to allow a continuous flow of development in relationships and growth. Our members show creative brainstorming methods and create templates for Gantt Charts, Pugh charts, Decision Matrices, and Bill of Materials for students to use.
Platteville High School Student Finalists presenting their project to an astronaut candidate next to the Saturn V Rocket at Johnson Space Center’s Rocket Park. Photo: University of Wisconsin-Platteville ASME Chapter
With these template resources and our Huff Family Innovation Center on campus, ASME members give insights to their group and assist in the fabrication/testing of their prototypes. Our makerspace also allows ASME to host mock presentations for the students to practice communication skills on the work they have created. ASME teaches key engineering processes and helps the students develop skills to work through setbacks and challenges they encounter.
For ASME, this program allows our members to enhance and foster their leadership skills in a controlled setting. Along with these benefits, members can directly connect with NASA personnel, learn about NASA internship opportunities, and tour NASA facilities with students.
This program collaboration allows high school students to be exposed to many engineering processes, sparks innovation and creative interest among many, and (most importantly) helps students feel confident in their work and their decisions. Events such as these are what help build today’s leaders—for both our ASME mentors and our high school students.
The collaboration of the NASA HUNCH Program with the UWP ASME Chapter gives our college mentors and Platteville High School students real engineering experience they can use in their current and future endeavors. The outlets of growth exhibited in this program are immeasurable—and we’re only just getting started.
Wyatt Steffanus is a mechanical engineering student with a marketing minor at UW–Platteville, serving as chair of the ASME Chapter and holding executive leadership roles in other organizations such as the American Foundry Society.
Matt Heer is an award-winning high school teacher, and physics education author for the past 23 years. He has plied his trade in Hawaii, Milwaukee, and Platteville, Wis., where he currently resides. He’s been a part of HUNCH and worked with NASA for the past 16 years.
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