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Engineering and science students come together for win

Nevada team beats out Penn State, BYU and UCLA

by Spencer Griffith

Students from the University won the first University Rover Challenge (URC), sponsored by The Mars Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to research and development of a mission to the red planet.

The University team, which was comprised of material science, geophysics, geology, computer science, mechanical engineering and environmental engineering students, competed against other university teams including Penn State, BYU and UCLA.

Teams were instructed to build a rover that could travel in deserts -- much like they would find on Mars -- and do basic scientific analysis. All teams were judged on performance of basic engineering tasks as well as scientific research and analysis.

The Nevada team, which was notified in November of the competition, only had two months to put a full team together and get funding for the project. The team began work on the rover in January.

The team had troubles in the early stages of the rover’s development.

“It was hard to work with the engineering team,” said Jill Pocock, a master studies student in geophysics and captain of the science team. “What we pictured (the rover to do) wasn’t always mechanically feasible.”

The engineering team also had it difficulties.

“It took us two months just to get the rover to be able to drive,” said Travis Fields, a senior mechanical engineering student and co-captain of the engineering team.

Fields, along with the other co-captain and masters studies student in mechanical engineering Blake Poe, spent 20 hours a week for five months developing the rover. They were part of a three-man special topics class that was offered in the University’s mechanical engineering department. 

All others who worked on the rover were volunteers.

The rover was complete after several months of working. The result was a rover that was equipped with suspension, a scientific analysis kit, a working arm to scoop dirt, cameras and five different radio communication devices.

After five months, thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours spent working on the rover the team was off to the undeveloped desert outside Hanksville, Utah.

Once there they immediately began to prepare for the competition.

“We were one of the only teams that went out a day early to practice and research,” said Poe.

Preparation played a key role in the win.

“The preparation done by the team helped us win more so than the actual rover,” said Jeffrey LaCombe, professor of chemical and metallurgical engineering and one of the faculty advisors. “We brought extra parts and did research to try and figure out what we were going to be asked to do before the competition even started.”

After the day of practice the competition began.

The teams had an hour and fifteen minutes to research the surrounding environment and bring back as much information on the desert landscape as possible. In addition to the research, the teams got one hour in which they had to get the rover to deploy a radio repeater on the site.

“Driving was tough because you had no depth perception,” said Poe and Fields, who both drove the rover for the competition. “Luckily our suspension helped the rover stabilize itself on the landscape.”

The University’s rover was the only one able to successfully deploy the radio repeater in a location that would expand communications to the target area. Additionally, the team was able to conduct the most thorough analysis of the numerous scientific sites.

The Nevada team did all this despite having some mechanical problems. Loose bolts, broken arms and stuck flaps were all problems that the team had to fix on the fly. Lacombe thought the group did very well when fixing problems.

“They stayed calm and diagnosed all the problems,” said LaCombe. “You can’t teach that.”

At the end of the URC the University took first place.

As the winner, the team will be presented with a check for $5,000 at the 10th Annual International Mars Society Convention, being held Aug. 30 – Sept. 2, 2007 in Los Angeles.

The students hope to take home first place next year but they will have to beat more than just four teams as the field for the 2008 URC will be expanded to 24 teams.

“Although the competition will be harder next year, I am glad to compete against more schools,” Poe said

The team has more time and now has more experience for next year’s competition. Upgrades to the rover are already being discussed. This includes a spectrometer for better scientific analysis, better steering, more powerful cameras and stereovision which will help the driver’s depth-perception.

“We know what upgrades we want to do and we have a lot more time to get them done,” said LaCombe. “We will be competitive next year even with the expanded field.”

The team is also looking for more volunteers to participate next year. Students do not have to be studying engineering or science to take part in the event. The Nevada team is looking for all kinds of students from journalism to computer science.

For those that would like to get involved in the University’s rover team contact Jeffery LaCombe at lacomj@unr.edu or at (775)-784-1797.

Spencer Griffith is a student writer in University Communications.

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