From a Dream to Reality: My Team EventHorizon Is a NASA Space Apps Global Nominee!
Hello! Welcome to my blog.
A few months ago, I joined a group of passionate students to take part in the NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2025. We named our team EventHorizon - inspired by the mysterious boundary around black holes where science meets the unknown.
And now...that dream has come true. 🚀
Our team has officially been selected as a Global Nominee, recognized among the best projects worldwide by NASA!✨
The moment our team, EventHorizon, officially became a Global Nominee
🌌How I Joined EventHorizon
Back in July, I clicked "Register Now" to join the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2025, but I didn't have a team. For an entire month, I invited my classmates to form a team, but it seems they aren't interested. I was exhausted from trying to find a team at that time.
But at the Team Formation day (August 21st), I carefully explored the NASA Space Apps Challenge community, and finally, I found a team that caught my eye - EventHorizon. I read their intro, and instantly felt this was where I belonged.
I sent a short request message, and a day later, I got a notification email from NASA Space Apps:
"Your request to join the team EventHorizon has been approved!"
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The moment I officially joined EventHorizon, my approval email from NASA Space Apps
After that, I emailed our team leader, and soon he added me to our WhatsApp group. Everything started from there.
🚀The Journey to Global Nominee
After joining EventHorizon, we quickly started brainstorming ideas. Our challenge, "Meteor Madness", focused on developing an interactive simulation that helps people visualize and understand the risks of asteroid impacts on Earth using real NASA and USGS data.
I was mainly responsible for building the 2D model of our solar system, and when we click on Earth, it shows the 2D model of Earth and NEOs (Near-Earth Objects) orbiting around.
As a team, we worked hard to design, code, and refine our project. We are still students, so we worked on our project every day after finishing our homework. There were moments of technical errors and lots of discussions, but through group meetings on Google Meet, we step-by-step solved problems to make our project better. I learned a lot about data visualization, teamwork, coding skills, and how real scientific challenges can be turned into something interactive and meaningful.
By the submission day, our web app was finally complete. We uploaded our project, wrote its documentation, and nervously waited for the results.
You can see our project below:
✨The Moment We Became Global Nominee
Weeks passed after the submission. Our team still kept in touch, sharing feedback and hoping for good news from NASA.
Then, on November 5th, in the afternoon, I was scrolling through the NASA Space Apps Challenge website. Suddenly, our team leader messaged me on WhatsApp:
"Are the results out?"
I clicked on our team page - and there it was.
A golden badge appeared below our team's name on the official NASA Space Apps page:
"Global Nominee".
For a few seconds, I just stared at the screen, not believing my eyes.
Out of 18868 teams around the world, EventHorizon was selected as one of the top Global Nominees.
I immediately took a screenshot and shared it with my teammates on our WhatsApp group. Our group chat was filled with messages like: "Guys we made it into the global nominees", "Congratulations 🎊 👏", "Omg congrats", "This is huge"!
The next morning, when I checked my email, there was another email from NASA Space Apps named: "Congratulations, you are a Global Nominee: 2025 NASA Space Apps Challenge". At that time, it was worth it after weeks of effort, late-night coding, and teamwork.
The email from NASA Space Apps that made us officially a Global Nominee
That golden badge and email might look normal, but to us, they mean everything.🌟
🌍Final Thoughts
Joining the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2025 has been one of the most meaningful experiences in my life. From struggling to find a team to becoming a Global Nominee with EventHorizon, I learned that curiosity and persistence can truly open new doors for you.
It wasn't just about coding - it was about teamwork, learning, and believing in possibilities. This experience reminded me why I love space and discovery.
Connect with me:
Email: trinhlehoangphuoc@gmail.com
GitHub: https://github.com/phuoc-trinh
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TechByPhuoc
See you in the next post!
Tags:
Space