Reaching New Heights: Engineering Students Earn NASA HUNCH Finalist Honors

This recognition marked the culmination of a yearlong engineering journey that took students through a full design cycle, from early concepts to final prototype testing and presentation.

This year’s team, Kelvin Fu ’26, Eduardo Solis ’26, and Asa Metcalf ’27, developed a Mars Trash Ejector, a system designed to address one of space travel’s most practical challenges: waste management during long-duration missions to Mars. Their solution focused on safely and efficiently removing waste from a spacecraft while preserving limited onboard space and resources.

The project began with early design development and continued through a structured series of reviews and feedback cycles. At their Preliminary Design Review (PDR), hosted at Dunwoody College of Technology, students presented initial concepts and received feedback from industry professionals, including engineer Glenn Johnson, known to students as “Space Cowboy.” The event also allowed students to collaborate with peers from other schools and compare different approaches to the same engineering challenge.

The work continued at the Critical Design Review (CDR) in Rochester, New York, hosted at Rochester Institute of Technology. There, students presented refined designs to NASA engineers and RIT engineering faculty, again engaging with Glenn Johnson and experiencing a campus environment filled with active engineering projects and innovation.

Through each stage, students refined their designs using feedback from engineers and educators, strengthening both their technical approach and their ability to communicate complex ideas.

Their work ultimately earned them an invitation to NASA’s Final Design Review, held in April at Johnson Space Center. There, the team presented their prototype to NASA engineers, astronauts in training, and an astronaut attending incognito.

For the students, the opportunity to present their work in Houston made the experience especially meaningful.

“The fact that you get to go down and present to astronauts and engineers, that’s a whole other level,” said Alex Jones, Director of Engineering at Shattuck St. Mary’s. “It creates a level of motivation that’s hard to replicate in a typical classroom setting.”

While in Houston, students also had the rare opportunity to sign a storage locker built through the HUNCH program, which is scheduled to fly to space in the coming months. The locker will be featured by NASA on an upcoming livestream.

For Shattuck St. Mary’s, this recognition represented more than a milestone. It reflected the strength of a program built around curiosity, innovation, and experiential learning. Through opportunities like HUNCH, students are not just studying engineering. They are engaging directly with the challenges and possibilities of the future.

To learn more about the Engineering Signature Program at Shattuck St. Mary’s, please click here.