Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology -The Moonbuggy Project: 2013

Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Final Run 2013

The impressive 2nd run of the AACT Moonbuggy Race, 2013. Nabbed us 8th place overall in a competitive international field of high schools and universities.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The Reno Gazette Journal gave the team a nice spread today to wrap up this year's Moonbuggy project.

Here's an excerpt but the rest of the story is here.

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Budding high school engineers from the Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology in Reno overcame a catastrophic first-round breakdown to place seventh in the high school division and eighth overall in the NASA Moonbuggy Race over the weekend.

The six-member team then snapped up the Neil Armstrong Award for Best Design at the competition held at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.

“They were not bummed out when it failed catastrophically; that’s the best learning,” said team adviser Dan Ruby, associate director of the Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.

This year’s team was Philip Nowak, John Sandusky, Silvia Quiroz-Perez, Danny Aguirre, Jason Christensen and Morgan Strohschein.

The vehicle’s chassis crumpled when the drivers hit an obstacle in the course, Ruby said, but the students repaired the buggy in time for Saturday’s competition, where they turned in a time of 3 minutes and 41 seconds around a punishing lunar-landscape track, finishing only 18 seconds off the winning time.

“We were trying to be as light as we could and still hold up,” said Addison Wilhite, a teacher at the academy and team adviser. “We erred on the side of too light and had to reinforce it for the second run.”

Even with the breakdown, the team members “kept their head in the game, responded well and came back with a great performance,” Wilhite said.

The race is an engineering challenge for high school and college-level students to conceive, design, build and operate pedal-powered vehicles, then race them around a ¾-mile course of simulated lunar terrain of rocks, ruts and craters. The human-powered moonbuggies must meet stringent criteria and carry an array of equipment.

The Neil Armstrong award was special “because this is an engineering competition,” Ruby said. “For us, that was more important than placing in the race.”

Judges for the Armstrong award included some of the engineers who worked on the original lunar lander or “moonbuggy” used in NASA’s Apollo moon-landing program in the 1970s, Ruby said.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Part 1 - The Great MoonBuggy Race 2013 - A Gallery of Photos and Video

From start to finish, failed first run to successful 2nd run, this was an extraordinary year for the AACT Moonbuggy Team. It was all capped off on awards night with the winning of the Neil Armstrong Best Design Award (see pictures below). Final stats:

4 second setup time
3:41 completion of the course
Total: 3:45 to complete the course.

7th place in the High School division
8th place overall against all 93 of the high school, university, and international teams.

Most impressive achievements: the way the team came together (and never got down) after the failed first run to reinforce the design, the excellent presentation to the engineers that garnered the Neil Armstrong award, and the excellent way they represented the Academy of Arts, Careers, and Technology. Here's to an extraordinarily successful year!

CHECKING OUT THE COURSE

FIRST RACE DAY!

The above clip is short and sweet. Part of the competition is "setup" time. Check out how fast the students are ready to ride!

Getting set for the start!

THE FRAME BUCKLES

The goal was to lighten the buggy but keep it structurally strong enough to withstand the rigors of the course. The first run showed that the team erred on the side of too light. A few pics of the buggy frame failure and the team springing into action to get it ready for the next day's successful run.

Video streaming by Ustream

The above video has footage of the first failed run of the AACT Moonbuggy starting around 35:30.

Below...a couple of team pictures. STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO...THE SUCCESSFUL SECOND DAY AND THE NEIL ARMSTRONG AWARD!

Friday, April 26, 2013

In what could be an epic turnaround for team AACT the first day of the NASA moonbuggy race began with anxious excitement and mechanical failure, and turned into extraordinary teamwork and resolute determination as we look ahead to tomorrow's second running of the race.

Things started off well with the new buggy weighing in at under 80 pounds and a set up time under 5 seconds. The riders looked fast and determined at the start line but the hopes of the team were halted when an obstacle on the course proved too much for the ultralight frame as it bent about a third of the way through the course.

Teamwork, improvisation, and hours in the NASA support "pit" have brought the moonbuggy back to life, stronger than ever. Tomorrow's race has the potential to be an amazing comeback for a team that looked to be on the ropes. As one of the faculty advisors put it, "this has provided the team with a teachable moment and it has passed the test with flying colors."

Reinforcements! Above image.

The only dark cloud on the horizon is the 80% chance of thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow. Rain is no problem for the event but lightning will cause the race to be scrubbed and without a successful second run team AACT will be left to dream of what could have been and work even harder for next year's event.

Below...ready to go for tomorrow's race!