The student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (UM ASME) earned a perfect score in project management at the NASA Lunabotics competition. And it also placed second in the Public Outreach Project Report category for mentoring 25 students at Sunset Miami High School as they built and coded smaller-scale lunar mining robots.
—Praveen Magesh, mechanical engineering student, current vice president and incoming president of UM ASME.
The team displayed the culmination of their efforts—the robot itself—at the College of Engineering’s annual Senior Design Expo on May 2, 2023.
Almost a month later on June 1, NASA announced the awards for its Lunabotics competition, which for more than 10 years has inspired undergraduate teams across the country to pursue STEM and build lunar robots, assisting NASA’s mission with the valuable data generated.
““Manufacturing the robot was very challenging,” said Neyton Baltodano, engineering student and current president of UM ASME. “We would not have been able to build our robot without the help of College of Engineering machinist Demetrios Doumenis Jr., who provided design advice and showed us how to operate machine shop equipment, even making some highly complex parts for the team.”
“I am so proud of our UM ASME Lunabotics team,” said Qingda Yang, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “They did an impressive job in designing, fabricating, and assembling a lunar mining robot. They earned remarkable feedback from NASA.”
“These students went out of their way to put together a truly excellent submission to this year’s Lunabotics competition,” said Pratim Biswas, dean of the College of Engineering. “Their exemplary collaboration and dedication serve as an inspiration to the whole Miami Engineering community. Each of them has a bright future and I’m sure the team’s work next year will shine even brighter.” View the full story.
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