LPU team wins ‘STEM Engagement Award’ in ‘NASA Rover Challenge’
New Delhi: A team of students, Visionauts, from Lovely Professional University (LPU) have won the prestigious “STEM Engagement Award” in the 2019 Human Exploration Rover Challenge, held April 12-13 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This marks the third consecutive occasion of a team from LPU getting selected to participate in the prestigious competition. Interestingly, the team also got an opportunity to interact with Sunita “Suni” Williams, NASA astronaut and two-time spaceflight veteran, who attended the second day of the event.
The 25th NASA Rover Challenge saw participation from over 100 teams from across the globe, including USA, Bangladesh, Germany, India, Mexico, Morocco and Peru. The competition challenges high school and college teams to design, build and test human-powered roving vehicles inspired by the Apollo lunar missions and future exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. It continues the agency’s effort to use the appeal and intrigue of its space missions and programs as catalysts for engaging students in STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Visionauts constitutes seven B.Tech (Mechanical Engineering) final year students at LPU, Karan Singh, Hemant Sharma, Rohit Manik Patil, Harsimran Kaur, Tejinder Kaur, Ekampreet Singh and Gursewak Singh. Karan Singh said, “We are thrilled to win the STEM Engagement Award from NASA. The competition is extremely challenging and offered us a chance to test ourselves against the best in the world. To have won an award in a competition of this stature is a moment of great pride for all of us. We are thankful for the exceptional support offered to us by our faculty and the university, who stood by us throughout the competition.”
Mr. Ashok Mittal, Chancellor at LPU said, “We are extremely proud of our students for having won the STEM Award at NASA’s Rover Challenge. This is the third consecutive time that a team from LPU has been selected to participate in the global competition. It is great to see our students placing a firm faith in their capabilities to be world beaters and demonstrating it on a global stage. This will inspire many more students at LPU to think global and win more such laurels.”