Rover Teams Win 2nd and 3rd Place
Congratulations to 2014 SIU Rover Design Teams for securing 2nd and 3rd place in the 2014 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge (formerly NASA Great Moonbuggy Race) at the U.S Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Design teams from 70 high school, college and university teams from 19 states, Puerto Rico, Germany, India, Mexico and Russia raced to victory. More than 500 students - drivers, engineers and mechanics, plus team advisers and “cheering sections” - took part in the competition.
Team Members: Ryan Spencer (Project Manager), Jess Pille (Driver), Kaylyn Shaw (Driver), Samuel Oltman (Driver), Kelby Rogers (Driver), Zach Pringle, Anthony Bolton, Kelsey Stagg, Nigel Doerge, Adam Y. Ee, Tengsong Ng, Mark Weijun, Roger Mast, Jeffrey Peterson, and Ifreke Umana.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Tsuchin Philip Chu.
The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge
The NASA Rover Challenge is a new engineering design challenge that focuses on NASA’s current plans to explore planets, moons, asteroids and comets - all members of the solar system family
This event challenges students to design, build and race lightweight, human-powered roving vehicles, solving technical problems along the way just like NASA engineers must do. Moreover, the goal of this event is focused on designing, constructing and testing technologies for mobility devices to perform in these different environments, and providing valuable experiences that engage students in the engineering technologies and concepts which are essential for future exploration missions.
Rovers designed was human-powered and carry two students, one female and one male, over a half-mile obstacle course of simulated extraterrestrial terrain of craters, boulders, ridges, inclines, crevasses and ruts.