Ta’Mara Adams and Steven Bradford (pictured, left to right) pedaled their hearts out April 1 and 2 in Huntsville, Ala., and helped the A Team place 18th in the world at the high school level for Scotlandville Magnet High School at the international 2011 18th Annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race.  The event, held at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, also featured the school’s B Team and its pedal-powered vehicle, which placed 29th.

Scotlandville High’s teams were two of more than 80 from across the world and the only one from the state of Louisiana to be in the race.  Competitors arrived from as far away as Russia, India and Ethiopia.  The Scotlandville High team was advised by Engineering teacher Judea Andrews and Physics teacher Gregory Thompson and mentored by Gary Stone and John LeBlanc of Jacobs Engineering. 
The teams were required to be able to carry the vehicle and have it fit into a 4X4-foot box.  This year marks the fourth year for the Scotlandville High engineering students to enter the competition.  Last year, the cost ran about $10,000.  By modifying last year’s model and designing a new vehicle this year, the school was able to create two vehicles with two different designs (mostly from bike parts) for two teams at about $11,000.  This was the first year the teams entered the design portion of the competition, as well.

As in years past, students were required to design a vehicle that addresses a series of engineering problems that are similar to problems faced by the original Moonbuggy team that served NASA.  Each vehicle must be human powered and carry two students (one female and one male) over half a mile of simulated lunar terrain.  The course includes “craters,” rocks, “lava” ridges, inclines and “lunar” soil. 

Moonbuggy entries are expected to be of “proof-of-concept” and engineering test model nature rather than final production models.  Each student team of six members is responsible for building their own buggy, and one of the builders must be a driver.  The competition started with the un-assembled Moonbuggy entries being carried to the course starting line with components in a volume similar to the dimensions of the original Lunar Roving Vehicle.  There they were assembled, readied for course testing and evaluated for safety – all once before the official course run.  The shortest times on in assembling the vehicle and traversing the course won at either the high school or college division level.  The race was inspired by the original NASA lunar rover and the Apollo 15 astronauts (David Scott and Jim Irwin) who piloted the first one across the moon’s surface in July 1971.