If you watched the 2000s teenage-heartthrob movie, you will know that there is a famous baseball game scene between the Cullen Family and other vampire characters. Imagine a scene with a bunch of engineer space nerds on a beach.
Watermelon eating, tug-of-war, and human pyramids. The annual Aerospace Games in Los Angeles are where employees and interns from various companies compete for prizes.
In late July, for the first time since before the Covid-19 epidemic, the " fun and family-friendly" games returned to Dockweiler Beach, hosted by Northrup Grumman, with over 30 companies, 6,000 attendees, and one overall champion. Hundreds of employees of the Department of Defense are bused in with colorful T-shirts with their employer's name on the front.
Home bases were put up quickly. Satellite models and flyers were displayed by companies. Ernest Yeung, a flight software engineer at Terran Orbital and a balloon toss competitor, reminisces, "Look at all of the companies that turned me down!" After getting his master's in theoretical physics, he pivoted his career away from academia and towards technology. He taught himself how to program while working as a driver for an ride-sharing company. He was the first person to get a yes from Virgin Galactic. He no longer competes in the relay races but still has a lot of pride in his previous employer. He was reminded of his own journey at the yearly gathering.
He said that he knew what it was like to be on the outside. I think I made it. I belong to this community.
SpaceX came in first place after stacking their tug-of-war team with factory floor workers. The entire competition is based on a points system, where the winner gets 40 total points and the second and third place teams get less. The batting order of the relay races is designed to make sure that no one gets tired and that time isn't wasted on player transitions. The goal for a lot of participants is not first place.
The first-place team has to plan for next year's games. Engineer Joan Marie Tubungbanua paints a red "JPL" stencil across her teammate's face as she says "So realistic, you aim for second." For the past few years, Northrup Grumman has hosted. The system engineer and University of Southern California masters student is working on the Psyche mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid in the vicinity of Mars and Jupiter. She got a lot of sand.
The sand was not as deep as it was on the beach. Tubungbanua says that they had to adjust their strategy. While corporate bonding games like cricket are common in India, the relay race in the United States was unique, according to her teammate, 19-year-old Kruti Bhingradiya. I have never seen a bat before.
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