Aiming for The Red Planet

SIPI Students perform out-of-this-world research

By Jason Morgan Edwards
Special to the Times

ALBUQUERQUE

Native Americans have done most everything these days, but the title “first Native on Mars” is still up for grabs.

The Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute has partnered with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under a NASA Tribal College and University Experiential Learning Opportunity grant to give students a taste of what living on Mars might be like.

Specifically, the grant allows students to work with rovers in a simulated Martian environment, called a Mars Yard. It’s also a tricky way to expose Native students to more science and math courses.

The research project is led by Dr. Nader Vadiee, principal investigator, on the faculty side and features an interdisciplinary team of 45 students who are performing the actual work. Dr. Vadiee describes the main focus of the research as promoting the advancement of Native American students interest in information technology and science, technology, engineering, and math careers.

“SIPI has developed a year-round robotics-centered IT immersion program that will provide students a stimulating learning environment to explore their curiosity and creativity in IT and STEM fields,” Vadiee explained.

To expand the impact of the program, and the number of students reached, SIPI partnered with four regional high schools with predominantly Native American student populations. The robotic elements of the program focus on performing remote science operations, akin to the Mars Exploration Rovers.

“Students will get hands-on experience in operating robots from remote locations to emphasize the importance of computers for computation and control, and communication networks to transmit and receive information,” Vadiee said. “Additionally students work directly with robots to program and configure them with various science and technology payloads. The concepts of system integration will be learned through these experiences to create a big-picture understanding of how IT infrastructure impacts science and technology systems.”

NASA hosts an annual competition to build and program robots. The idea behind the competition is to gather samples and survey the Mars terrain via unmanned crafts. Emery Sutherland (Navajo) explained, “Right now, I’m working on the NASA Swarmathon. We have three rovers. … We’re programming the rovers to pick up a physical cube, and take it back home. It’s an arena that’s about ten meters by ten meters, with a home base in the middle.”

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