UAH students win NASA’s ‘International Moon Buggy Contest’

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. ( WHNT ) — A team of students from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) represented the Rocket City on the international stage.

The students competed in NASA’s “Human Exploration Rover Challenge,” more commonly known as the “Moon Buggy Race.” The Chargers took home first place.

“It was one of the most special experiences of my life,” said Will Ashley.

Ashley was the team’s design lead and said they worked on the project for a year.

“We had really good team bonding and chemistry where we were. You know, long nights in the shop, working on reports, working on parts, assembly, testing all hours of the day, and to finally see that come to a culmination in the wind was incredible,” Ashley said.

During the competition, the buggy performs tasks such as cleaning solar panels, climbing boulders and getting through sand pits to mimic jobs needed on the Moon or Mars.

David Fikes is a lecturer at UAH who taught the senior design class and served as the team’s advisor.

“They kept two steps ahead of me,” Fikes said. “I would ask them to do something, ‘We’ve already started that,’ or ‘Have you thought about doing this?’ and ‘We finished that last week.’ I’m serious. All I had to do a lot of time was stay out of their way.”

The team secured a win and received an invitation to speak at the Dominican Republic’s STEM conference after becoming friends with their team throughout the week.

“We would speak about our experiences through Aerospace at UAH so that they could learn about that and begin to incorporate it in their moon buggy program more into their school environment, receive additional funding and use that to propel their students towards aerospace careers, which are somewhat less common down there,” Ashley said.

Ashley said both teams learned from the shared experiences and are looking to create an exchange program between the two countries in the near future.

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