Cosmic Crop Crew

If your family were moving to Mars, what would you think about first? The journey? A place to live? And once you arrived — where would your food come from? Cosmic Crop Crew took that last question and imagined a robotic farming system to help a future settlement grow its own food.

Explore. Plant. Help things grow.

The students brought their idea to life through three connected prototypes. An AI scouting robot classified rock samples, exploring how technology could help investigate an unfamiliar landscape. A LEGO farming robot demonstrated drilling and seed dispensing. A greenhouse model collected environmental readings, helping the team think about the conditions plants would need.

Together, these models told a bigger story: growing food means understanding the surroundings, planting a crop and looking after it. The project was a classroom exploration of that future, giving the children a way to turn an enormous question into something they could research, build and demonstrate.

When the plan meets the test

Their first ideas did not always behave as expected. The farming robot struggled to move steadily over the model terrain. Rather than starting the whole project again, the team tested different wheel arrangements and eventually chose tracks. They learned to narrow down a problem, compare possible solutions and use what happened in a test to decide what to change next.

Researching with AI and studying the competition rules also meant taking responsibility for understanding their own idea. With their parents’ trust and SUP’s support, they worked towards a project they could explain as well as operate. Their pitch had to connect each robot to the bigger question: how might people grow food far from Earth?

From Hong Kong to a wider world

Selected to represent Hong Kong at the Asia Pacific Open Championship in Manila, the team carried that question onto an international stage. They shared their project, met teams from other places and encountered ideas beyond their own classroom.

The journey gave them more than a finished model. It gave them practice in taking an unfamiliar problem seriously, working through setbacks together and explaining a solution to a new audience. A project about life on another planet helped expand their own world here on Earth.