Third time's a charm: CU sweeps NASA's moonbuggy contest

By Bill Steele

On the third try, Cornell not only won the Great Moonbuggy Race, April 12 and 13, but took both first and second place.

An entry built by this year's team of student engineers navigated a rocky course at the U. S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., in 2 minutes and 33 seconds ­ including assembly time ­ to take first place in the national competition. Another Cornell vehicle, a rebuilt version of last year's entry, came in second despite frustrating obstacles. The competition included 77 teams of science and engineering students from high schools and colleges across the country.

Inspired by the problems NASA faced in building its original lunar rover, the competition challenges students to design and build a human-powered vehicle that can be stored in a space 4-by-4-by-4 feet and light enough for two people to carry 20 feet. Each vehicle is driven by a team of one man and one woman. In the race, contestants must carry the vehicle to the starting point, assemble it and then traverse the rocky course.

A Cornell team entered the competition for the very first time two years ago, with a low-budget entry made of old bicycle parts. The team discovered that they had grossly underestimated the difficulty of the course, which was designed to simulate the terrain on the moon and consisted of old tires and other obstacles covered with crushed cement. Their vehicle collapsed before reaching the finish line. In 2001, an improved Cornell vehicle came in fourth, and the team won a prize for having the best pit support.

The 2001 team lost partly because assembly of their vehicle took a full minute, so this year's new vehicle, called Cornell I, was designed to assemble in six seconds flat, clipping the overall time to a winning 2:33 for drivers Noah Smick '02 and Adrianne Kroepsch '03.

Cornell II--last year's vehicle with some upgrades--still had the old assembly system, but drivers Chris Boitnott '02 and Lorraine Ricci '04 amazed even their own teammates by putting it together in just 13 seconds. In the first of two heats they received a one-minute penalty for touching the ground during a near crash. This put several other teams well ahead and made victory seem impossible. Then, during the second heat, a steering handle sheared off and later Ricci's drive chain derailed.

"But the team did not give up," reports Bill Park, one of the Cornell engineers. "The only way she could power the buggy was by using the tires like a wheelchair and pushing the buggy forward. The buggy finished in a combined time of 3:16, just barely ahead of the third place team and into moonbuggy history."

This year's team was helped by sponsorship from Ford Motor Co., Swan Cycles, IR Torrington, Fox Racing Shox and National Rod Ends. The overall budget, including donated materials, was $12,000.

A team from nearby Lansing High School finished 10th out of 32 teams in its class.

Kroepsch's report on Cornell's entry was published in the April 11 Cornell Chronicle.

The winning team will be given a free trip to watch a space shuttle launch, accompanied by their adviser, Andy Ruina, Cornell professor of theoretical and applied mechanics.

Pictures of the event are available on the web at http://www.news.cornell.edu/PB/moonbuggy.html. There will be more information on the moonbuggy team's own site at http://www.mae.cornell.edu/moonbuggy/team.html