Rockets, robots, radiators — and more

Advanced Aero Vehicle Group

• In addition to large radio-controlled model airplanes, AAVG also designs and builds high-powered rockets (watch video – wait until 33-second mark for launch).

• The FAA has to be notified before these rockets can be launched.

Baja Team

• One year, back in the UMR days, the team was required to build a vehicle that could go through water, kinda like a boat, in addition to handling rugged terrestrial landscapes. You can see it on You Tube.
• The team is scheduled for competitions in Oregon, Wisconsin and Alabama this spring.

Concrete Canoe Team

• The canoe must pass a swamp test each year; it is submerged in water and, hopefully, floats back to the surface.
• Normal concrete used in a construction project weighs about 150 pounds per cubic foot. For these canoes, lighter aggregate mixtures of concrete are used.
• Paddlers in competitions often get wet.

Engineers Without Borders

• S&T has one of the largest student EWB chapters in the U.S.
• S&T helped start the EWB chapter at the University of Kansas.
• S&T’s EWB students have traveled to Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras.
• More than 330 students have traveled to these countries so far.

Formula Car Team

• In addition to spring events, the team is competing in Germany this summer.
• The 2002 vehicle was sold on eBay.
• The Indy-style cars are capable of going from 0-to-60 mph in approximately 3 seconds.
• Watch video.

Human-Powered Vehicle Team

• The team won six straight championships.
• In 2007, former team member Jerrod Bouchard, who received bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and engineering management from S&T in 2008, became the second-fastest college student to ever be propelled by his own power (on a long stretch of road in the high desert of Nevada).
• Bouchard was encased in what has become known as the bullet bike, which was engineered by S&T students.

Robotics Team

• Often overheard at robotics competitions: “Well, the thing worked last night.”
• The team makes robots capable of autonomously navigating an obstacle course.
• Miriah Anderson, a member of the team, has already landed a job with National Instruments in Austin, Texas, when she graduates.

Solar Car Team

• The team has won two national championships in solar car racing.
• Solar Miner VI traveled from Dallas to Calgary on zero gallons of gas.
• Every solar car has been emblazoned with the No. 42 – which, if you believe Douglas Adams, is “the answer to everything.”

Solar House Team

• S&T has a Solar Village on campus property.
• Dan Oerther, the John and Susan Mathes Chair of Environmental Engineering, has been living in one of the other houses with his family.
• During the summer S&T sells power generated from the village back to the utility company.

Steel Bridge

• Cautionary tale: during one past competition, another team was putting the final piece of its bridge in place, using a rubber mallet, when the structure collapsed.
• At competitions, teams are judged on how efficiently they can construct their bridge.
• The bridges are approximately 1/10th the size of a real bridge.

New teams

• The Hydrogen Design Solutions (H2) and Internationally Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) teams are the latest to join the center.
• H2 studies challenges facing the development of hydrogen technology.
• iGEM designs synthetic biological systems that can operate in living cells. Their latest project used segments of DNA embedded in bacteria to detect glucose.

 

NOTE: For a list of 2112 competition dates, go here.

ALSO: More coverage of the design teams can be found in the current issue of Missouri S&T Magazine.