Introducing Integral Engineering Skillsets to the Diverse Population of Underrepresented Students at the University of the District of Columbia via the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Abstract The University of the District of Columbia (UDC), the only public university in the nation’s capital and a land-grant university, has been participating in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge for the past several years. The teams are asked to design and fabricate a two-person human-powered rover capable of traversing a course designed by NASA to simulate various terrain. The rover requires a significant redesign each year; therefore, these disciplinary benefits and opportunities encouraged the students to form a team in 2022. The team leveraged UDC’s new NASA-funded Center for Advanced Manufacturing in Space Technology & Applied Research (CAM-STAR) and its research facilities to design the rover. This paper introduces the rover competition for 2022 and the UDC team’s new designs using advanced and additive manufacturing. Also, the skill sets learned by the diverse population of the team members are discussed, along with critical engineering techniques using various forms of engineering.