Follows a diverse group of middle-school students from San Jose, CA, who compete in a nationwide tournament to code satellites aboard the International Space Station.
Direction
Verrette captures genuine kid panic without exploitation.
Production
Actual ISS footage elevates this from school project to cosmic.
Director
Thomas Verrette
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Zero Robotics program was created by MIT and NASA to democratize space access — this film documents its first middle-school cohort, making these kids literal pioneers.
The satellites the students programmed were actual SPHERES robots aboard the ISS — their winning code ran in space, making them among the youngest people ever to execute code in orbit.