UNF Robotics wins first place for STEM engagement in NASA's Lunabotics competition
The University of North Florida’s Osprey Robotics student club ranked first place in the STEM Engagement category at the 2024 NASA Lunabotics Challenge, held at The Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at Cape Canaveral.
The STEM Engagement Award is given to teams that inspire younger community members to study STEM-related topics by collaborating with K-12 students in their communitites and presenting quality activities to a large and wide range of audiences. For this outreach, teams design activities to introduce students to robotics and coding, share about STEM careers and NASA’s Artemis Mission and discuss their own experience with Lunabotics.
The UNF Osprey Robotics club engaged in three major outreach activities with local schools. The club met with Sandalwood High School’s robotics team to guide designing attachments for the FIRST Tech Challenge competition. They conducted an activity at Shiva Robotics Academy where students built remote-controlled robots and participated in a moon-themed obstacle course. They also collaborated with Xavier Rozas at UNF’s STEP lab, where they hosted a field trip for 4th and 5th-grade students from Neptune Beach Elementary.
The Osprey Robotics club is led by mechanical engineering student Sarah Nguyen, and the STEM outreach was organized and facilitated by music education student Ned Franklin. The club’s advisor is Dr. AmirHossein MajidiRad, an UNF assistant professor of mechanical engineering.