April 15, 2016  

Purdue Calumet teams win top awards in NASA challenge

Two Purdue University Calumet teams competed and placed in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge on April 8-9 at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

One Purdue Calumet team placed first in the university division at 6 minutes, 1 second, and the other team placed sixth with a time of 8:14.   

Team 1 won the Sample Retrieval Challenge at 2:12 in the university division. In this challenge, a new feature this year, participating teams attempt to collect four samples, liquid, small pebbles, large rocks and soil samples using a mechanical arm or grabber they design and build.

Team 2 won the Neil Armstrong Best Design Award in the university division.

The challenge focused on designing, constructing and testing technologies for mobility devices to perform in space. This year, participating teams had to make their own wheels and could not purchase an off-the-shelf product.

Participants competed on a three-quarter-mile course that simulated terrain found on distant planets, asteroids or moons. The course included full-scale rockets and space vehicles competitors had to maneuver in, through, on and around with their mobility device. 

Team 1 participants: Thomas Hardy, Doug Guess, Andrea David, Benjamin Chijike Nnaji, Julia Brown, Rachel Kwain.

Team 2 participants: Christian Ramos, Kamaal Harris, Jacob Lauritzen, Ryan Hensen, Justin Peterson, Dominique Lettiere.

Other members: Aaron Kruse, Nicholas Trogdon, Joshua Wachowski, Hejab Alqahtani.

Writer: Aspen Deno, denoa@purdue.edu 

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