Campbell HERC team enjoys best finish after a somewhat rocky start
Campbell University’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) team had its best showing at the annual NASA event in Huntsville, Alabama, placing third overall and earning a Pit Crew Award at the 30th annual event.
The annual engineering competition — one of NASA’s longest standing challenges — held its concluding competition April 19-20 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. More than 600 students with 72 teams from around the world participated this year, with teams coming from 24 states in the U.S. and 13 other nations from around the world.
Teams were awarded points based on navigating a half-mile obstacle course, conducting mission-specific task challenges, and completing multiple safety and design reviews with NASA engineers.
The competition this year was “fierce,” and the team from Campbell faced immense pressure after an essential part of their rover was damaged during the first run of the competition according to Dr. Lee Rynearson, associate professor of mechanical engineering and the faculty sponsor for Campbell’s HERC squad.
“They overcame these challenges with prior preparation, including preparing spare parts ahead of time, organization, fabrication skills, and a large helping of perseverance and grit,” Rynearson said. “The team was pleased that their efforts were recognized with the Pit Crew award and also that our repaired rover earned third place overall, coming out ahead of more than three dozen other college and university teams.”
The Pit Crew Award goes to the team with a pit crew that “demonstrates resourcefulness, motivation, good sportsmanship and team spirit in repairing or working on their rover while the teams are in the pit area.” Dr. Allison Lee, assistant professor of engineering, accompanied the team to the competition and noted that NASA service volunteers were impressed with how well our students worked together in a high stress environment, following the direction of student team leaders as they finished rover repairs right before their second run.
Dr. Jenna Carpenter, founding dean for Campbell’s School of Engineering, considers Campbell a premier undergraduate engineering program, and the school’s NASA HERC success is just another example of why that is true. The experience students receive — both in terms of technical skills and leadership skills — is true to Campbell’s hands-on, project-based and team-based approach in its curriculum.
“We are so very proud of our students,” Carpenter said. “They have put in many, many hours outside of class on this project, which encompasses not only building the rover, but also K-12 outreach activities, social media posts and a significant amount of documentation and presentations.
“Dr. Rynearson is a fantastic mentor to this team. He and the team do an outstanding job.”