Trine team records best in-person finish at NASA rover challenge

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Trine University recorded its best finish in person at NASA’s annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC), which returned to in-person competition in Huntsville, Alabama, for the first time since 2019.

Trine University’s team placed ninth in the college division of the competition, held April 20-22. Trine finished the course under the eight-minute limit for the first time.

Thirty-seven colleges and 11 high schools took part in the challenge.

Team members were design engineering technology majors Jacob Clark of Jackson, Michigan, Reagan Guthrie of Genoa, Ohio, Austin Hensley of Noblesville, Indiana, Emma Oslakovich of Coal City, Illinois, Michael Simmons of Angola, Indiana, and Ernesto Vieyra of Angola, Indiana.

Hensley, the team lead, said the team overcame multiple challenges during testing, including several major components breaking.

“The big one for us was our steering knuckles,” he said. “We had to cut and bend them three times before we finally got them right. Supply chain issues with our frame material pushed the start of the build phase back.”

 “We believe our simplistic, lightweight design helped us out immensely; our rover weighed in at 159 pounds. We saved weight by having the rear driver sit backward so we could have shorter belts and fewer pulleys. The team also removed all suspension from the rover.”

The student competition — one of seven Artemis Student Challenges — tasks high school and college teams from around the world to design, build and test a human-powered rover capable of traversing simulated terrain from the Moon, Mars and other rocky planets. Along the way, teams are also required to complete scientific tasks, reflecting spacewalks that were completed during NASA’s Apollo Program and may be completed during NASA’s Artemis Program.

For more than 25 years, the annual NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge and its sponsors have encouraged student teams from the United States and around the world to push the limits of innovation and imagine what it will take to explore the Moon, Mars and other worlds.

The Human Exploration Rover Challenge is managed by the Office of STEM Engagement at George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The competition reflects the goals of the Artemis program, which seeks to put the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement uses competitions to further the agency’s goal of encouraging students to pursue degrees and careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.