Picture this: on a chilly April morning in Killingworth, Connecticut, my dad, three eighteen year old boys, and I all packed into a Toyota highlander with a U-haul hitched on the back. You’re probably wondering what on earth would a group like that be doing and where would they be going? The answer is Mars, well not exactly but in a way we were, let me back up and explain the events that led up to that chilly April morning.
Let’s go back to where it began, I enrolled in a class at my high school called “Engineering Design and Development” it is a team, project based class and it is only offered to seniors. Teams are formed in September and projects are developed throughout the entire year. To be honest, I wasn’t very excited to be in this class, I wanted to be in a different engineering class but it didn’t fit in my schedule. Looking back, I can not begin to explain how grateful I am that the other class didn’t fit and that I was placed in this one instead.
Groups and projects were chosen on a day when I was absent, so when I came back I was able to join whichever team I wanted. The team I picked was formed of the kids that were underestimated. They didn’t take all the AP courses and they joked around a lot, but the project the were doing fascinated me. They chose to build a pedal powered rover for a NASA competition in Alabama. I knew nothing about NASA or machines all I knew was that this was something I wanted to be part of.
Our team got to work immediately by researching the dozens of rules of the competition, brainstorming designs, and dreaming about making it to Alabama. Our teacher required every team to find an advisor from outside of the school. My dad was our first thought, and he was the most important edition to our team. He offered years of engineering experience and guidance, he allowed us to build in his shop, and he provided many of the materials that we needed.
As months began to pass, progress was slow, we faced funding challenges and difficult time restraints. By winter, our teacher and classmates had stopped believing that we would be ready to go to Alabama. We refused to let this stop us. We met every single Sunday in my dad’s metal shop to build our rover. We had to re design our wheels three times. It took several modifications to even get our transmission to run. Before this project, I had never even used a drill before, but I was eager to learn so my dad and my teammates taught me as we went. I gained more engineering knowledge about design process and construction in eight months with this project then I had in three years of engineering classes.
The spring rolled around and our rover was beginning to take shape. Our trip to Alabama, or as we liked to say Mars, was seeming like more and more of a reality. The school lacked the funding to pay for our trip, so we started a gofundme. Family members, members of our community, and anonymous sponsors came together to donate over $2000 to our team. We booked an Airbnb and rented a U-haul, we were ready for the trip of a lifetime.
The week before our trip we were at the shop every night, sometimes until midnight, making improvements on our rover. Three days before we left, we were pedaling our rover around the parking lot to practice for the course. We tried to go up a steep hill and the entire frame snapped in half. I was devastated. Looking back I realize that it is moments like this when the true character of a team will show. Our team could’ve given up, we experienced a major setback days before the competition. Instead, we stepped up. We had the parts to fix the frame shipped to us overnight and we rebuilt the frame in one day. The kids that everyone underestimated, turned out to be some of the hardest working students that I have ever met.
Now back to that April morning, we loaded up our U-haul and we were off, Alabama bound. After two long days of driving, and many fast food stops, we made it. Once in Alabama we continued to make changes to our rover including changing the wheel size on the day of the competition. At the competition, we pedaled our rover through a course that was meant to imitate the terrain of other planets, (rocks, sand, hills, craters, etc.). Our team did not do very well up against the other teams from high schools and universities around the globe, one tire came loose about half way through and the rear transmission gears were stripping from the high amount of torque placed on them. We did not win, but we certainly didn’t come in last, we were in the middle. However, we didn’t care about our placement, the experience we gained from the process was more valuable than any trophy would ever be.
For more information about the challenge: https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/home/index.html