NASA race on tap for group of SU students

Nine senior mechanical engineering students prepare to enter their collective collaboration of work into the NASA Great Moonbuggy Race held at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in April.
The group worked for more than seven months to prepare their bike for the race that will last less than 10 minutes.
The students include Lawrence Bazille, Mathew Chemin, Wayne Hamilton Jr., Christopher Havsey, Darrell Hunter, Bobby Mathews, Jeremy Perkins, Jeremy Swan and Josiah Wilson. The group is led by professor Edgar R. Blevins into what started as a class project and has now turned into the beginning of their careers, many of the group members said. Mykel Delandro of New Orleans is not a direct contributor to the building process, but is considered a team member and will be one of the two required riders during the competition.
The race that will be held April 3-4 is inspired by the original Lunar Rover vehicle, designed by NASA engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, and deployed during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
The committed students had to pass a design course before they could be considered for the team, and dedicated several hours of unpaid time to the project that comes with no promises of winning.
“(Doing) this gets us ready for a team orientated work place,” Hunter said.
The vehicle, required to fit into a 64-cubic-foot box disassembled, will be carried to the race line by two team members, assembled, and navigated through the course, all while being timed. Each team gets two chances to manipulate the course, the quickest time of the two is recorded and the top three winning teams are chosen with the shortest total time.
Throughout the building process the team members had to keep in mind 24 rules that their moonbuggy must follow in order to compete in the competition, including enabling the bike with a TV camera, antenna and school flag, equipping the vehicle with safety belts that must be worn by both male and female passengers, and ensuring the buggy has at least a 15 foot turn radius.
According to Swan, the students work about 40 hours a week collectively to complete the buggy – the buggy is still being refined- but will be divided into two teams for the competition.