AIAA Rover Team
The AIAA Rover Team is a competition team for Cal that designs and builds a Mars Rover. The Rover is entered in different national competitions each year and competes against other Universities from around the globe.
Academic Year Break Down
Click on a button below to view my role and responsibility on the team each year.
Sophomore Year
New to the Team
As a sophomore, I joined the AIAA Rover Team. I was one of two sophomores that joined the team in the fall; the team was a majority seniors. When I joined the team, the design phase was over. The Rover Team had been working on one design for two years because the NASA Robo-Ops competition we were going to compete in was a biannual contest.
Machine Shop Certified
Shop Monkey
Since the design phase was over, I helped the team in the machine shop. I machined parts for the camera mast sub assembly. I learned a lot that year because it was the first time I got into the machine shop (MechE’s don’t get in unless they have a club or are seniors). Learning that there are physical limitations to what you can design was an eye-opening realization that has made all my designs much more feasible.
Competition 2016
NASA Robo-Ops
When we went to compete, the rasp pi burned up and the rover was unable to run. There was not enough testing on the EE side of the team to determine if the onboard raspberry pi could handle all of the Rover's functionality. This lack of testing resulted in a rushed final build and the rover was unable to compete.
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If you are interested in viewing the competition rules more in depth, please click the following pdf.
Junior Year
Arm Lead
As a junior, I returned to a whole new team; most of the team had graduated in the Spring of 2016. The team was starting the entire design process over and creating a new rover for 2018. I was elected by the team as Arm Lead, meaning I would oversee the arm assembly.
With a large portion of the team graduated, the net size of the team shrunk dramatically. The team size was small for the 2016-17 academic year, which made communication easier but left each member with much more responsibility.
I was the only member on the arm assembly that knew how to use SolidWorks. I found that the best way to utilize my young, inexperienced team, was to use them for research purposes. If we all sketched concepts and ideas out on paper, I could CAD them much faster. I drew over 239 parts & assemblies,13 different arm revisions, and 5 claw versions by myself on Solidworks.
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2016-17 was the first year the Cal AIAA Rover Team switched competition focuses and moved away from the biannual NASA Robo-Ops to the University Rover Competition. The URC is extremely more complex than the NASA competition, and therefore more rewarding. It is an annual competition and the Rover Team decided that the 2016-17 year would be used for research and team growth, not so much for fabricating a rover to compete.
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CAD Drawings 2016-17
Senior Year
General Mechanical Lead
After a successful year of learning and growing, the Rover team is back in business. I was elected as the General Mechanical Engineer, meaning I oversee all sub-assemblies and make sure the teams are working on finishing their designs to meet competition specifications.  This position requires a lot of organization and delegation, but has been working smoothly so far.  I host meetings outside of class time for the leads to collaborate and get on the same page.  I also set up a dual co-lead system for each sub-assembly which allows each team to have an immediate second opinion on all designs.
Co-Lead Arm
In addition to General Mechanical Lead, I will be in charge of the arm sub team. I have a co-lead, Scott Woods, who will help me CAD and assign work to other sub team members.  This year's arm design is different from last years competition and it will be useful to have another strong designer to help make the CAD feasible.  The arm was the sub assembly I wanted to contribute to because I spent all of last year working with it.  The arm is the most intricate part of the rover, and requires the most clever configurations to achieve the tasks set forth by the competition.  This year's newest arm requirements are the ability to type on a keyboard as well as use a screw driver.
Rover DeCal
This year the AIAA Rover Team president, Mitchell Oleson, created a DeCal, an elective class for students to join our team. Â The DeCal was a genius move for making recruitment easier and retention rates higher. Â The class has approximately 35 students in it, and Mitchell and I help teach and lead the course. Â Mitchell does general meeting lecture slides to briefly preview/teach the students what we'll be working on, and then we split up by teams. Â I take the MechEs and help them learn more in depth about the topic. Â The DeCal has been really rewarding and I'm confident it will become a club stable. Â It is an awesome way to keep people working on the extracurricular project while building the team for future years.
University Rover Challenge
Attached below is the URC rules for the 2018 competition. Â If you look in the Sophomore tab of this page, you can find the NASA Robo-Ops rule. Â Comparing the two documents will truly show you how much harder the competition has been stepped up.
