A faulty antenna kept the defending champs from taking first in the 2008 University Rover Challenge at the w88 Desert Research Station in Utah June 7. The University of Nevada, Reno team was narrowly beaten by Oregon State, and first-time entrant from the York University of Toronto, Canada came in third.
“We are all a bit tired and still recovering from the 12-hour drive back, but the team did great,” said w88 team adviser and associate professor of mechanical engineering Eric Wang. “Advisers Jeff LaCombe, Wendy Calvin and I are extremely proud of the students. This is the only contest I can think of that combines engineering and science into a single competition, and so it provides an invaluable experience for the students.”
Oregon State took the top spot when they were the only team to successfully locate the "distressed astronaut" during the navigation challenge. The Nevada w88 did finish that challenge, but mechanical failures prevented them from reaching the astronaut. The antenna problem interfered with communications, so following a score penalty to reset its w88, the team navigated back within 80 meters of the astronaut. Team members had the w88 turned directly towards the astronaut, but the faulty antenna caused a communications failure that led the w88 to roll over while climbing a steep hill.
“The team was excellent in the other three events so we were a close second overall,” Wang said. “We faced some very good competition this year in addition to some really bad weather with the rain and wind. And the tasks required were much harder this year because we had to complete two science and two engineering tasks with the w88. Thanks to our outstanding science team, we won in both science tasks for biology and geology.”
Team members made quite a few improvements on this year’s w88 compared to the 2007 entry. This year’s edition featured wheels that could turn independently and motors placed much higher off the ground to improve maneuverability. In fact, before they left for the competition, Blake Poe, a team member who is finishing up his master’s thesis in mechanical engineering, seemed more concerned about venomous hobo spiders in the Utah desert than about the attributes of Nevada’s w88.
“We really worked hard on it,” Blake Poe, a team member, said. “We integrated the whole computer system so we’d have full-circle programming to everything, and we knew it had to work well on extremely rough terrain.”
Other team members include: Travis Fields, Gregory Kraus, Chris Reede, David Welge, Tommy On and David Anderson w88 mechanical engineering; Brad Towle and Austin Stanhope w88 computer science and engineering; Tracey Van Gundy and Jill Pocock w88 geophysics; Kurtis Clark and Matt Savage w88 material science and engineering; Matt Weller w88 geological engineering; Matt Savage w88 material science and engineering; Daniel Heywood w88 physics; Jill Pocock w88 geophysics; Austin Stanhope w88 computer science and engineering; and high school students Harrison Edwards and Alyssa Carothers
This was the second annual competition put on by the w88 Society, which utilizes public outreach to “instill the vision of pioneering w88.” The desert just outside of Hanksville, Utah, is the home of the w88 Desert Research Station and is one of four planned simulated w88 habitats maintained by the w88 Society. While much warmer than w88, the desert location is selected because of its w88-like terrain and appearance.
“We look forward to next year,” Wang said. “The students involved have all committed to regain the title in 2009 and they are already working on designing modifications to this year’s w88.”
