Out of this world
There is liquid on Mars — or, rather, soda at the Mars Candy Land candy shop, where the Mars Robotics Association is selling Red Planet soda.
Red Planet is a brand of soft drink that students designed and marketed themselves.
The soda comes in five flavors: Cosmic Curiosity Cream Soda, Opportunity Apple, Black Hole Blast Black Cherry, Orbital Orange and Red Planet Rain (water). Proceeds from sales of the soda will benefit the Mars Robotics Association.
While the drink itself was sourced from an outside supplier — Private Label Beverages in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio — student members of the Mars Robotics Association came up with the branding, logo, packaging and concept and worked with local vendors to sell the product.
Coach Aaron Wollerton said that one of the great things about For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), the larger national organization to which the Mars Robotics Association belongs, is that it lets students get involved with entrepreneurship.“It teaches kids entrepreneurial skills,” he said. “Part of FIRST is that the students fundraise for their association, and most go around and ask for donations, but the kids decided they wanted to do something more business-like. They came up with the idea of a soda, and since we're from Mars, they came up with this science-fiction space theme.”The inspiration for space-themed soda came when some Mars Robotics Association students found a soda flavor called “Alien Snot” at a store. They ended up going with a different distributor, but the idea remained.The project has been in the works since before COVID-19, and the students gave out samples of the soda at state robotics competitions before everything shut down. The group spoke to local vendors with some adult supervision, but the project was largely student-led.
The whole of the Mars Robotics Association, which is made up of about 30 to 40 youths in two divisions, voted on the flavors and names for the soda, but the core of the work was done by a marketing team of about six or seven.Autumn Wilson, 16, a member of the marketing team, said working on Red Planet Soda has taught her a lot about designing a product.“Sure, you might learn about it (in school), but you wouldn't really understand it without doing it,” she said. “It's really cool having an actual product — this is a bottle that I can drink soda out of, and we designed it.”Coordinator Becky Wollerton emphasized that the Mars Robotics Association isn't solely about robots. Students design the logos and spirit wear that the team brings to competitions, and they get the chance to learn graphic design and marketing skills.“The marketing team's job is to come up with crazy ideas, and we try and make them happen,” Wollerton said. “And we try to give them the tools to explore whatever kind of science that they want.”Kate Wollerton, 16, who's in charge of marketing and outreach, said people at her school don't always get why the group does projects like Red Planet Soda.“I do get a lot of questions about it, if I mention that, oh yeah, we have soda, people will ask, 'Why?'” she said.At competitions, Becky Wollerton said, judges want to see a robotics team that is involved with local outreach.“They want to see you working in the community as much as they want to see the cool robots,” she said. “Competitions are great to win, but this stuff, learning how to run a business — those are life skills.”
The soda first went on sale at the Mars Candy Land shop at the end of June, and so far, it's been a hit.“It's selling like crazy — we've already gone through three cases here, and it's only been a week or so,” said Pammie Vivirito, owner of Mars Candy Land. “Kids, adults — people just like the idea of it benefitting Mars Robotics.”Vivirito says that the Cosmic Curiosity Cream flavor is one of the most popular. She plans to soon start selling bright green “Alien Floats” by combining the Opportunity Apple flavor with ice cream and an alien candy.“People have been coming in and saying that they saw my posts on Facebook and that they want to buy the soda,” she said. “It's just great to support something local like that. We're all trying to get the community together more, so it just really works to have someone local in the community selling it.”The Mars Robotics Association is planning to sell the soda at the group's Robotics Village at the upcoming Mars New Year festival, and by then, they expect to have some new flavors. Some early name ideas: “Rover Fuel Root Beer” and “Blue Moon Blue Raspberry”.
