Correction: In "Lunar learning" on Friday's Page B1, UND's Department of Computer Science was misnamed.
Twelve UND students are headed to Florida's Kennedy Space Center, where they will go robot-to-robot against schools from across the country at the end of May for a NASA robotics competition.
"I wanted to generate more interest among students and give the undergraduates a chance to get experience in robotics," said Jeremiah Neubert, a mechanical engineering professor and one of the team's two coaches. "This is a really fun thing to do, and also I like developing the ties with NASA."
The team's task is to move as much simulated lunar dirt as possible into a bin in 15 minutes. The task is simple to describe, but harder to achieve; students estimate they've spent 20 hours a week since the start of the school year to design, build and test the robot.
NASA designed the Lunabotics Mining Competition because scientists hope to mine the dirt on the moon for oxygen should humans ever settle there.
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UND's robot looks like a small, green front-loader. Students operate the robot wirelessly, using an Xbox 360 controller to control the wheels, arm and tilt of the bucket.
The UND students will pit their excavator against robots of 54 other teams May 23-28. Competing schools include Harvard University, Virginia Tech and several universities in India.
Students come from three departments, computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. They are all seniors.
Designing the robot drew from the knowledge of each team member. Team members had to use mathematics and physics to make sure their designs worked before they started building.
"They have to calculate the stresses and the strains on the robot and stuff like that. They applied a lot of math to know it was going to work before they built it," Neubert said. "You can't just start building stuff and randomly get it to work, because that's how you end up with a hodgepodge-looking robot with weird things welded all over the place."
Students also are judged on outreach activities. The UND team showed their robot to Ben Franklin Elementary School first-graders earlier this spring.
"Our big thing is kind of explaining what engineers do, because a lot of students, even high school kids, don't know what we do," said Kaylein Tradup, a senior in mechanical engineering. "I basically told them that we problem solve. The problem here was how are we going to get the lunar dirt from point A to point B, and this is what we came up with."
Participating on the team has helped some of the UND students as they look for work.
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"I'm sure it helped in my interviews. When you say you're on a team for a NASA competition, they look at you and say, 'Really? Tell me about it,'" said Mike Gereszek, a senior mechanical engineering major. He will work for Cargill Inc. in Illinois after graduation.
The UND students hope to do at least as well as last year's team: Out of 24 teams at the international competition, only eight had robots that functioned. UND's was one of them.
"It happens a lot at design competitions," said Tradup. "You find out that for a lot of teams, something happens at competition, and it doesn't work."
Gulya covers education. Reach her at (701) 780-1118; (800) 477-6572, ext. 118; or send e-mail to lgulya@gfherald.com
Correction: In the original "Lunar learning" article, UND's Department of Computer Science was misnamed.
