NASA To Showcase South Brunswick High School Students’ Work

The future aerospace engineers have been working with NASA to design an experiment that will fly into the stratosphere. See details:

By Sara Winick, Patch Staff

May 15, 2026 11:45 am EDT

The South Brunswick Aerospace Club. (South Brunswick High School)

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — As the next chapter of human spaceflight unfolds, South Brunswick High School students are working on building the future.

Under the guidance of their physics teacher, Ms. Shumaila Chisti, and the leadership of South Brunswick Aerospace Club Team A Captain Zafir Shamsi, students Pranav Yogeswaran, Krish Saravanakumar, Samuel Asefa, Pranav Gentela, Atharva Vignesh, Kunsh Mittal and Prabhav Kongara won the NASA TechRise Student Challenge 2025-2026 in January.

Their winning proposal, NDVI Mapping via Machine Learning, was selected for its innovation and scientific merit.

As part of the award, the project was awarded $1,500, and the team received continuous technical mentorship from NASA engineers, giving them hands-on experience with real-world aerospace research and design.

Team members described the award and opportunity to work with NASA as “a dream come true.”

This honor has placed the students amongst an elite group of innovators who have been working under the mentorship of NASA/Future Engineers on designing and building a science and technology experiment that will be part of a high-altitude balloon experiment.

That experiment will travel into the stratosphere this summer and collect data on the payload engineered by the students.

Then, students will use machine learning for NDVI mapping.

“We are so proud of the amazing students, educators and mentors in our community,” high school officials said. “And are so grateful to NASA for their dedication, mentorship and funding.”

On Friday, NASA will be hosting a showcase for the winners and has invited the school and community to the event, which will take place virtually from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

RSVP information can be found here.

“This is an exciting opportunity to celebrate the hard work and innovation of our students and to see firsthand what they’ve accomplished through the NASA TechRise program,” high school officials said.

“Let’s show our support and make this a proud moment for our community!”

More about the students' award can be found here.