Maybe we should start thinking of it as the crimson planet.
Engineering Club students at Washington State University in Everett headed to Utah last weekend to compete in a Mars rover challenge.
And compete they did.
The team took second place in the University Rover Challenge. Universities around the world entered, but only 30 were invited to the Mars Desert Research Station at Hanksville, Utah.
WSU started its mechanical engineering program in Everett in fall 2012 and the Engineering Club is in its only second year. The club entered last year, but didn’t make the cut to get to Utah.
Over the past year, the engineering students poured in hours of their free time building a Mars rover from scratch. The dozen engineering students — 11 men and a woman — who traveled to Utah went “absolutely wild” at the awards ceremony, said Engineering Club president Blaine Liukko.
“Being Cougars, we’re loud fans and loud participants,” Liukko said. “It was absolutely phenomenal. I have never worked harder and never had a trophy mean more to me in my entire life. This whole team came together. I can’t thank my team enough.”
The only other American teams to place in the University Rover Challenge finals were Cornell University, which finished eighth; Brigham Young University at 11th place; and the University of Michigan at 12th place. Teams from Poland took first and third.
The 100-pound, go-kart-size rover went through a series of tests at the competition, including picking up a gas can and filling a tank with the rover’s robotic arm, attaching and pulling a trailer and delivering tools to four astronauts based only on longitude and latitude coordinates.
The students built the rover at Everett Community College’s Advanced Manufacturing Training &Education Center. The students received donations of money and materials from local businesses.
WSU Everett senior-to-be Mitch Elder has been elected to succeed Liukko as president of the Engineering Club, and he’s already planning next year’s rover. The juniors started kicking around ideas on how to improve the rover since the first day of the competition.
Liukko, who earned his associate degree at Edmonds Community College before transferring to WSU Everett, and fellow senior Robert Blosser, an Everett Community College grad who transferred to Everett, held off on their job search to focus on the rover challenge.
They said they didn’t consider graduation the end of their school careers. Instead, they felt that the competition was the end.
“Both him and I have talked about where we want to be and what kind of company we want to be with,” Liukko said. “It’s really exciting to start thinking about a career.”
The WSU Everett Mars rover can be seen in Liukko’s hometown of Lynnwood at Mayor Nicola Smith’s State of the City address on June 16.
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