Congratulations to the 2020 NASA HUNCH Culinary Challenge winners!  And to NASA OSU Project Engineer Allison Westover and her team, who had a considerable challenge, as well.

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Alli, as she prefers to be called, serves as Program Manager for NASA HUNCH Culinary Challenge.  In normal times, this year-long program would culminate in ten teams of high school students, from all over the country, traveling to Houston.

At the start of a school year, as Alli explained in our 2019 interview, student teams sign up for the NASA HUNCH Culinary Challenge.  Then, using NASA nutritional guidelines, these students create a dish for astronauts aboard the International Space Station.  Every year, there’s a new theme with which they’re working: side dish, breakfast food, dessert, and so on.

Research, creativity, and the considerations of daily life in zero gravity are all equal ingredients.    The competition is on!

And in the spring, ten finalists are chosen.  Normally, they’d get to travel to Johnson Space Center, and prepare their dish for a panel of judges.

But the current pandemic made onsite recipe testing impossible.

Nevertheless, the 2020 Challenge happened–and three excited winning teams will now receive scholarships, courtesy of NASA HUNCH (which is an acronym for High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware) and their new partners!

Alli explained how she and her team adapted the competition, shared the story of the winners and offered a look at the students’ creativity.

On this edition of Over Coffee® you will hear:

• The steps the NASA HUNCH Culinary Challenge considered, to make final judging a reality;

• Some new considerations which made completing this year’s Challenge even more important;

• How the Culinary Challenge team conducted final judging;

• What the creative process was like, for some of the participating student teams;

• Some of the nutritional requirements, when cooking for the ISS crew;

• Who won!  The top three winners and their schools;

• How NASA hopes to make the winning dishes available to the public, in the future;

• A look at a food-related study, currently in progress aboard the ISS:

• Current plans for the 2020-2021 NASA Hunch Culinary Challenge;

• A story about this year’s winning team that may just give you chills!

• Alli’s advice on adapting an event to a virtual experience, during the pandemic;

• And, how one team used creativity and their sense of humor to make their video work!

• And, of course, how to get your school, class or homeschoolers involved!