This morning, our Year 6 Explorers boldly embarked on Astro Pi: Mission Zero, a fantastic STEM challenge that will quite literally send their code into space!
Using the Astro Pi Sense HAT emulator, the girls learned how to program the colour luminosity sensor, an amazing feature of the Mark II Astro Pi computer.
Their task: to set the background colour of an image based on the colour detected by the Astro Pi itself, helping to make the International Space Station a little more colourful for the astronauts on board.
The Sense HAT allows the Astro Pi to “sense” the world around it, measuring everything from movement to temperature and displaying information on its iconic 8 × 8 LED matrix. For this mission, the girls used the web‑based emulator to simulate these functions, gaining a real insight into how science and coding work together in space exploration.
As part of their project, Year 6 also coded nature-inspired images to appear on the Astro Pi’s LED display, bringing a touch of Earth’s beauty to astronauts orbiting hundreds of kilometres above us.
We are thrilled to share that the girls’ Mission Zero programs will be run on the International Space Station in May 2026. Each participant will then receive a personalised certificate in June 2026, showing the exact location of the ISS at the moment their code was executed.
A truly out‑of‑this‑world experience, well done, Year 6!
