UA Student Robotic Rover Team Among Best in Nation

UA engineering students recently won $10,000 to compete in a new NASA robotics competition.

Only seven teams in the nation qualified for the National Institute of Aerospace award, which enabled them to design and build a planetary rover and demonstrate its capabilities at the NASA Johnson Space Center 's Rock Yard in Houston in May.

NASA's multi-acre Rock Yard, officially known as the Planetary Analog Test Site, simulates lunar and Martian landscapes and is used by NASA to test habitats, rovers and spacesuits.

NASA and the National Institute of Aerospace established the new student rover competition, snappily titled "Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts, Academic Linkage, Exploration Robo-Ops," aka Rascal, to test the robot-building skills of university students, and to spark interest in planetary rovers and robotics.

The competition required the rover to negotiate obstacles and traverse difficult terrain, and to identify and collect various colored rocks while being controlled via broadband from "mission control" at the UA.

Teams also had to submit a technical paper to support their rover projects, and the UA team scored the highest among the seven finalists for its technical paper.

"This was our first time in a robotics competition," said Brandon Pitts, Rascal team member and aerospace engineering junior. "We were competing against teams that had master's and Ph.D. students, so we were shocked when we got the highest score for our paper."

Out in the Rock Yard, gremlins got to the team's Exploratory Space Vehicle , or XSV, which had servo trouble. "We were not able to pick up any rocks, but gave a good show," said Rascal team leader Jordan Odle, also an aerospace engineering junior. "One of our servos on the arm shut off, which caused the arm to not operate."

"We ended up not placing but received the highest score for our technical paper," Odle said, undeterred. "Overall it was a great experience and we are thinking about competing again next year."

The UA Rascal team designed, funded, built, tested and completed the competition in three months.

"Construction started mid-February after we learned that we had received the funding from NASA, and we dedicated just about every weekend after that to machining and putting the rover together from scratch," Odle said. "This whole process has been an excellent learning experience.

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