A 12 year old boy – Brandon and his school teacher (from the Chicago area) “Googled” several organizations to ask for help before their experiment could be accepted into the Endeavor space shuttle launch , and after being turned down by the first several companies they called, they finally reached AVEKA. Willie Hendrickson, the CEO, had an interesting discussion with Brandon and his teacher and continued communication for several months. We found out that his experiment was accepted to be a part of the Endeavor space shuttle launch which initially was to occur on April 29, 2011. Willie and our Director of Research & Development at AVEKA attended the space shuttle launch in Orlando with the student and his teacher. While the space shuttle launch was delayed Willie was able to meet several students at the launch gathering and inviting them to Minnesota after the experiment returned from space to do additional testing on Brandon’s experiment at our AVEKA Headquarters.
On June 23rd, 2011, AVEKA hosted our first ever “Microencapsulation in Space” Workshop. There were 7 students, 5 parents and 1 teacher in attendance. They were able to test the materials that were on the space shuttle and spend a day as a scientist in AVEKA‘s labs.