Space Apps Ottawa - Mentors

Help and support participants and teams with co-ordination, ideas, resources, challenge support, and general event assistance. Find out what the participants want to achieve and help them get there!

Help the teams brainstorm ideas on the challenge and the solution
Give advice on topics you are qualified or skilled at
Keep an eye on the time, the schedule is usually quite intense
Help the teams assign roles and responsibilities
If they get stuck, help get them moving again
Help the team choose who is going to do the presentation
Help them make their own decisions
Don’t make the teams change direction halfway
Don’t push your own ideas
It’s ok not to have answers, but ask the right questions
Show up and check-in with your teams from time to time

Tools and Technology

We encourage setting up a repository on Github , Dropbox or Google drive at the start and remember to commit often.

The Canadian locations have an official collaboration tool which is Discord (this is where the mentors will be) but you can also use Slack or Whatsapp for group communication. We recommend downloading the Discord desktop app instead of using a browser.

Here are some useful links for downloading, installing and using Discord:

Discord Beginner's guide
Download the Discord desktop app

It is recommended once you login and create an account, select a username that will differentiate yourself from participants. ( include ''Mentor" )

Click Here to View NASA Covid19 Space Apps Challenge 2020

Is this the NASA Space Apps hackathon, or something else?

Ottawa is one of over 200 cities participating in the NASA International Space Apps Challenge globally.

We also have lots of support from the Canadian Space Agency and other government departments and companies. So we like to think of this event as the NASA International Space Apps Challenge with a Canadian flavour!

Are you looking for volunteers or mentors?

Absolutely! If you're interested in helping out at the event, email us here.

How do I form a team, and how big should it be?

Start by taking a good look through the challenges and select a few that interest you. At the start of the event, all registrants will receive login information to an online collaboration place, where prospective team members can share information together. We recommend a team is at least 3 people, ideally 4-6. If there is a lot of demand for a particular challenge you can all work together but form sub-teams.

How will I know what someone else's specialty is?

Networking is important here. To put a great team together, you’ll have to walk around and talk to people. Everybody has something they can offer.

What if we need help solving a challenge?

We have mentors and volunteers onsite all weekend - they can provide as much or as little help as you need.

We have additional assistance from the Canadian Space Agency who can provide expert help on their challenges and data.

We also have a Slack network that allows us to communicate with our fellow Canadian cities.

And last but definitely not least - we encourage teams to help each other out over the weekend - so if you get stuck there is somebody to help you get "unstuck"!

What Happened Last Year

NASA International Space Apps Hackathon 2019 was an intense 48-hour global weekend hackathon for developers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, astronomers and enthusiasts. We were hosted by the Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program at Carleton University.