A University of Iowa engineering student built a replica of the TRACERS satellite that will study the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth.
Story: Richard Lewis
Photography: Tim Schoon
Published: July 7, 2025
When she was younger, Ava Reed loved playing with toy bricks, interlocking construction pieces, such as Legos. She’d assemble a cast of characters and a multi-car train that she’d transport around her home, where her superhero troupe would battle against imaginary foes in whatever fantasy worlds that Reed had conjured.
“I enjoyed the story-making aspect about it. I liked creating a world with a history behind it and immersing myself in it through the characters I had created and could act out through them,” Reed recalls. “It was a great way to pass the time.”
Years later, Reed, a rising junior majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Iowa, returned to toy bricks to construct from scratch a model-sized version of the spacecraft in TRACERS, the $165.7 million NASA mission led by Iowa to decipher the mysterious interactions between the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth. The model includes replicas of each of the six instruments constituting the scientific payload on the spacecraft, scheduled to launch this summer.
“It was a great creative experience, and it reminded me honestly of times that I had forgotten about when I was younger,” Reed says.
Reed’s model of the TRACERS spacecraft includes a step-by-step instruction manual she created to guide others in how to build the satellite, two of which will orbit the Earth — one closely following another — to determine how, when, and where the powerful jet of energy from the sun penetrates into Earth’s upper atmosphere, creating the mesmerizing northern and southern lights but also threatening communications and electrical grids on our planet.
It also includes details about the mission and the scientific purpose for each instrument, each of which was either designed, built, or fully tested at Iowa.
University of Iowa student Ava Reed shows off a model that she built out of toy bricks of the spacecraft in TRACERS, the $165.7million NASA mission led by Iowa to decipher the mysterious interactions between the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth.
“I learned about the instruments that were on TRACERS in a more intimate way than someone just reading about it,” Reed says. “Through it all, I was able to get involved with the space program at the University of Iowa and learn about the history and get really interested in it.”
Reed heard about the opportunity to create the model through an email sent by Kate Morris, an Iowa graduate who’s working as an aerospace engineer for TRACERS. Morris, a member of the Robotics at Iowa team while an undergraduate, reached out to the club to advertise the position.
Reed, a current member of Robotics at Iowa, replied almost immediately.
Build your own TRACERS model
If you want to order the parts to build your own TRACERS toy bricks model spacecraft, this website provides the ordering instructions, assembly manual, and pictures and descriptions of each instrument.
University of Iowa student Ava Reed's model-sized version of the spacecraft in TRACERS includes replicas of each of the six instruments constituting the scientific payload on the TRACERS spacecraft, scheduled to launch this summer.
“I had never sent an email faster,” Reed says, with a laugh. “It was something I really wanted to do. It was right up my alley.”
Reed started on the toy bricks project in June 2024. She examined in detail photos and diagrams of TRACERS spacecraft and the instruments, ordered the interlocking parts from third-party sources, and began building. She encountered challenges nearly from the outset; one of the biggest was how to re-create with toy bricks the octagon-shaped base of the spacecraft.
“I had to do some math, mostly trigonometry, to figure out how everything was going to fit together,” she says.
Reed completed a first draft of the model in late fall. But the structure was tedious to build and was in danger of collapsing at various places if pressure were put on some pieces.
“There wasn't a lot of structural integrity, to be honest,” Reed admits. “I was like, ‘Who designed this? This sucks.’”
But Reed kept at it, and by March she had a workable model. She then built it again the month after, to make sure it could be re-created, and presented it to the TRACERS team at Iowa.
Launching into history
The Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, is a $165.7 million NASA mission scheduled to launch this summer to decipher the mysterious interactions between the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth. The award is the single largest externally funded research project in UI history, and the first to top more than $100 million (out of more than 35,000 funded research projects).
“All of us on the TRACERS team are so impressed with Ava's work and are very excited to build our own set!” says Gabe Martin, administrative services coordinator for the TRACERS team at Iowa who oversaw Reed’s project. “Beyond the boost in individual joy and team morale this has created, Ava's toy bricks model is a great tool for outreach and engagement for the TRACERS mission, the physics and astronomy department, the University of Iowa, and science in general.”
With her hands-on involvement in TRACERS, Reed is excited for the launch.
“When I watch the TRACERS spacecraft go up, I can say I built the replica. I understand the mission and the science behind it.”
