FAIRPORT, N.Y. — Remember your favorite high school project? Where is it now? Most never make it home. The rare ones are saved for posterity.

In one Fairport classroom at the Eastern Monroe Career Center, and other classrooms across the country, machining students are forging precision parts for NASA.

Senior Isaiah Saunders-Brevner and his manufacturing and machining classmates are going to space, sort of. They are fabricating 30 pieces for handles that will be installed inside the International Space Station to help the astronauts.

What You Need To Know

  • Eastern Monroe Career Center manufacturing and machining class is part of the NASA HUNCH program

  • The HUNCH mission is to empower and inspire students through a project-based learning program

  • High school students learn 21st century skills and have the opportunity to launch their careers through participation in the design and fabrication of real world valued products for NASA

“It is really cool to be able to be a part of something bigger while I am still in school. Sending something to space is a really unique opportunity that you just couldn’t get anywhere else or any other industry,” said Saunders-Brevner.

The pieces will take the students most of the school year to complete.

“Obviously, there is only a certain amount of parts that can go into the International Space Station,” said Fairport High School senior Bryan Webb. “There are not multiples of them, just one. It is cool that we can be a part of something that goes up into space.”

The hardware made by high school students to support NASA is part of the NASA HUNCH program with 277 schools in 44 states.

“We have already had meetings with NASA HUNCH about the quality control,” said Leonard Hall, manufacturing and machining teacher at Eastern Monroe Career Center. “The materials are certified. We are extremely proud. It’s also neat that not only will the handles be flying in space but the students will be signing a locker panel that will go up to space. Their signatures and their work that they touched will be in space. So that is really neat.”

The NASA HUNCH mission is to empower and inspire students. The program is looking to expand to more high schools. If your school is interested in joining the program, you can apply online at nasahunch.com.