Engineering Physics Students Compete in the
NASA Great Moonbuggy Competition
Throughout
the 2003-2004 academic year, a group of five engineering physics students
designed and constructed a moonbuggy in an effort to compete in the
NASA Great Moonbuggy Competition. In the NASA competition, students
are given the task of designing and constructing a human-powered vehicle
capable of carrying two students, one female and one male. The culmination
of the project is a grueling endurance race over a half-mile course
of simulated lunar terrain including craters, rocks, lava ridges, inclines
and loose soil. The competition includes realistic design constraints
including a size limitation that the vehicle must fit in a 4 foot cube
before assembly. Weight must also be considered as the two racers must
lift and carry the unassembled moonbuggy 20 feet without assistance.
The competition
was inspired by the original Lunar Rover team of the 1960s, in an effort
managed by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. That team had the
challenge of designing and building a compact, light, flexible and durable
vehicle that would carry astronauts on the Moon's surface during the
Apollo missions. They met the challenge, as astronauts used separate
Lunar Rovers on the final three Moon missions - Apollo 15, 16 and 17
- to travel 52.51 miles, gather 620.6 pounds of rock and soil samples,
and return them to Earth.
The
MSU Moonbuggy Team included four seniors, Dustin Blazier, John Tucker,
Charles Pruitt, and Todd Hoffmann, who completed the project for their
capstone design experience, which is a requirement of the engineering
physics curriculum. An engineering physics freshman, Amanda D'Angelo,
also contributed to the project and was the team's female driver. The
team began the project in August of 2003 and worked diligently throughout
the year. The finished vehicle was made of light-weight aluminum and
included a four-wheel suspension system in order to handle the course's
rough terrain. The construction of the vehicle was funded by the Kentucky
Space Grant Consortium and the Department of Physics and Engineering.
Currently, another group of engineering physics students is getting started on a new moonbuggy that will compete in the 12th annual competition on April 9, 2005 in Huntsville. Murray State will also host the West Kentucky Regional Moonbuggy Competition in March of 2005 where high schools in the region will be given the opportunity to design and build their own moonbuggies to race against each other. This event is a joint venture between the Department of Physics & Engineering and the Department of Industrial and Engineering Technology and is funded in part by the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium.
