A group of UCF Knights took home two awards from the NASA MINDS challenge, a collegiate-level competition that encourages students to create new technologies that could benefit future space missions.
The UCF team, known as the Lunar Regolith Obliterators, won third place in the Championship Build, Design and Demonstration category and also finished third in the Systems Engineering Paper category. The monetary prize for both awards totals $1,500.
The Lunar Regolith Obliterators comprises six mechanical and aerospace engineering students: Guillermo Villalobos, Colin Doyle, Tati Gary, Oscar Rodriguez Medina, Ivette Williams and team leader Robert Trautwein. Their goal was to mitigate the harmful effects of lunar regolith, or moon dirt, on solar panels located at space stations or on spacecraft.
Lunar regolith can negatively impact space missions by clinging to the surface of solar panels, blocking sunlight or causing damage through its abrasive texture. If left on the solar panels for too long, the regolith can also lead to overheating.
To solve these problems, the team developed a vibrational system and a dust shield system that work together to eliminate lunar dust from a solar panel.
What ended up as an award-winning creation began as a Senior Design project for the students’ capstone course. While the timing of both events led to back-to-back presentations less than a week apart, the team couldn’t resist the opportunity to participate in a NASA challenge.
“We liked the idea of being able to provide a possible solution, with certain limitations of course, to those challenges that NASA faces in actual lunar missions,” Villalobos says. “The preparation for both presentations was a bit hectic, but it taught us how to properly collaborate for a positive outcome and manage our time wisely.”
The team was guided by Senior Lecturer and IDesign Director Kurt Stresau, and Senior Lecturer Marino Nader, who provided both professional advice and insights from the industry.
“They provided valuable feedback as well as challenged our ideas for the improvement of the project,” Villalobos says. “Their insight into real world engineering applications provided us with reasonable and feasible solutions.”
The guidance from the faculty coupled with the experience of the NASA competition allowed students to learn lessons that they couldn’t have gained in the classroom alone.
“We learned that teamwork makes the dream work,” Villalobos says. “Without the collaboration of the entire team, this project would not have been a success.”
