Despite the difficulties presented by the coronavirus pandemic, a team of students at Montgomery County Community College has managed to complete two of three planned scale NASA Mars Curiosity Rovers.

As part of a five-year grant program from NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, the group of students worked on a yearlong project that included designing and building from scratch vehicles similar to the ones NASA blasted off into space to study the Red Planet.

The machines had to be able to travel anywhere on land autonomously, outside of crossing a road or going through a building.

The students were recruited for the project based on their previous expertise in mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering. They collaborated on three rovers, each of them featuring a different detection system. The aim was to determine which ones would work the best for the mission.

By the end of the spring semester and despite COVID-19, two rovers were successfully finished.

“This is such a cool project,” said James Bretz, Dean of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. “It shows our students how a big-time research project works” and “challenges them in a way they don’t get challenged in the classroom.”

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