The NASA Rover Club will be one of 50 teams to compete in the Great Moonbuggy Race, a national contest, this month.
“The club has two main objectives at the moment. First is to compete in the NASA-sponsored HERC event held annually in the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama,” said President Zachary Holmes.
NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge has students across the nation design, build and race human-powered rovers through various obstacles. PNW’s Rover Club has participated in over 25 of the 31 HERC events that have been held and received recognition from the competition, other teams and the state of Indiana.
The challenge was conceived in the spirit of NASA’s Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle that carried the first men in history across the lunar surface. As part of the HERC competition, students create vehicles to face challenges similar to those engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center addressed in preparation for Apollo 15 mission that landed on the moon in 1971.
Students who join the NASA Rover Club and participate in the HERC event also get a chance to add some unique STEM experience to their resumes.
“Additionally, our organization is centered around developing the skills of the participating students in all manner of STEM-related activities, like design, writing, modeling, presentation and communication, machining, welding, et cetera,” Holmes explained.
Building student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is an important function for the club.
Despite its history of participation and achievements in a national event sanctioned by NASA, many students on campus are unaware of the Rover Club.
“I had no clue our school did anything like that, to be honest,” said Joshua Romero, a sophomore Psychology student. “It’s really cool that there’s opportunities like that available to students here, though, and it’s interesting that there’s so many things happening on a pretty small campus.”
NASA’s 2025 HERC race is scheduled to take place April 11 and 12, leaving the Rover club with little time to finalize its rover.
Still, club members are going into the upcoming competition with high hopes.
“Our Rover is currently under construction, as we build a new one or remodel a previous design each year, but it is nearly finished,” said Holmes.
