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NEWS RELEASE
Three Kids and a Robot Learn to Save the DayPrescott, Ariz., June 23, 2008 – A military transport airplane has just gone down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Senegal. It was carrying a world-renowned scientist, four vials of an anti-Ebola virus serum, and a hand-held computer with notes for fighting an Ebola disease outbreak in central Africa. Your mission: send a remote-controlled rescue robot into the sunken plane’s fuselage and bring back the serum and the hand-held computer. This crisis is fiction, but it could easily be fact. It was the simulated scenario faced by three first-year students from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, who won first place in the university division at the National Underwater Robotics Challenge, held June 6-8 in Chandler, Ariz. 
Eduardo Moreno, Cory Ravetto, and Rene Valenzuela, who are aerospace engineering majors at the University’s Prescott, Ariz., campus, designed and built their winning vehicle, “Medusa,” in only three months. The robot’s domed shape – medusa is Spanish for “jellyfish” – stood out among other contestants’ box-shaped entries and also won the judges award for most unique design at the three-day competition. “We just combined our knowledge,” said Ravetto, who met his teammates last year in freshman engineering classes. Aside from a few electronic parts, the Embry-Riddle students manufactured all hardware for the robot. “Because there were only three of us, we had to do everything. It taught me a lot about engineering,” said Valenzuela, who worked on the robot’s sensors and video camera and “drove” the vehicle. Student teams were judged on their technical report, oral presentation, and simulated rescue mission. During the rescue, teams had to make their remote-controlled underwater robots locate a submerged aircraft at night in a pool, navigate inside the fuselage, and perform a variety of tasks. In addition to retrieving the four vials of serum and the hand-held computer, the robots had to measure the temperature where the serum was found to ensure its viability, measure the depth of the transport plane, and retrieve the “black box” flight recorder from the downed plane’s cockpit. 
All tasks were performed at night to replicate the low light levels of the ocean floor and used remote control and onboard camera feeds. The Embry-Riddle students' advisor was John Nafziger, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. The robotics challenge was organized by the Arizona Promoters of Applied Science in Education, with participation by Arizona State University and other sponsors. VIDEO: Embry-Riddle students test their robot:
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering. The university educates more than 34,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through its Worldwide Campus at more than 130 centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, and through online learning. For more information, visit www.erau.edu |
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