Winning the 2024 Human Rover Explorer Challenge (HERC) provided an engineering student team at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System, the opportunity to perform STEM outreach in the Dominican Republic (DR) this summer. UAH rover team THESEUS members traveled to the DR capital to give presentations to attendees at the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, or INTEC University, at the invitation of DR rover team Apolo27. UAH was the overall winner of the NASA competition in April, and the DR team took home second place in the same division. The two squads bonded when UAH hosted visits to the UAH team’s rover design and construction facilities.
“The trip was awesome. We were treated like ambassadors,” says David Fikes, a UAH senior lecturer in the College of Engineering who is the HERC senior design instructor and team advisor. “It was the first time for all six of us to visit the DR, and the first time ever out of the U.S.A. for three of the students. It was a very productive visit, and I look forward to working with the INTEC team from the DR in the future.”
Fikes was accompanied on the journey by his wife Becky, along with UAH engineering students and UAH HERC team members Karissa Coggin, Will Ashley, Eli Rose and Rosa Rice. The Santo Domingo Institute of Technology is a private university founded in 1972, considered to be the premier institute of technology in the country.
“It is with immense joy and gratitude that we welcome you for this special visit," said Ingrid Lopez, Apolo27 team leader, and Ezequiel Diaz, team advisor, in a statement to the UAH team. “Your presence here is not only an honor, but a testament to the bonds of collaboration that unite us. We are excited to share our passion, culture and the dedication of our team with you. Thank you for making this journey to be with us; we deeply appreciate your visit and look forward to creating unforgettable memories together.”
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The UAH ambassadors delivered a presentation titled, “Reaching for the Stars: Aerospace Exploration by UAH,” which detailed rover design and construction, meeting Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) requirements, STEM outreach and the UAH mechanical and aerospace (MAE) engineering machine shop. The UAH visitors also promoted the ways the NASA/HERC competition has successfully meshed with the UAH senior design class, encouraging their DR counterparts to make rover design a credit-earning class.
“The administration at INTEC is going to move rover design into a senior design course so that their students can get credit toward their degree,” Fikes notes. “It was previously a voluntary club with no college credit. The government officials also want to support it because of the STEM outreach to young people in the DR. They are also interested in any potential future university-to-university cooperation, exchange students, exchange professors, DR students coming to UAH for graduate work, etc.”
Fikes provided the host team with an overview of the UAH program that concluded with a Q&A session, ensuring the visit proved a collaborative boon to both universities. The DR team responded enthusiastically, citing numerous obstacles their own program has had to surmount along the way.
“A group of young people accepted for each team are from low-income families,” explains José Ezequiel Díaz, advisor of the Dominican HERC team. “All this matters a lot to me because I was born in a very poor area. When I was a child, my house had dirt floors and tin walls, and on many occasions, we had no food, so I identified a lot with those young people and wanted to make this competition a tool to change lives.”
Appointed advisor in 2018, Diaz faced many challenges in getting things up and running, especially with regards to obtaining sponsorships. “My wife and I bought the materials for their very first rover, along with clothing for team members,” Diaz says. “You could make a movie of all the challenges we went through to get to NASA in 2019. When our first rover was damaged, we worked through the night to compete the next day. Over the years, companies and institutions have joined us, along with the university, extending a helping hand to sponsor us. We have impacted several thousand young people through direct engagement activities and over 15,000 more through conferences, motivating children in schools to embrace STEM and dream big.”
Since those early days, INTEC teams have gone on to shine in several HERC competitions, capturing the System Safety Award, STEM Engagement Award, Team Spirit Award and Most Improved Award before their second-place finish in 2024 where they bonded with UAH THESEUS.
Returning the favor
The UAH team welcomed Apolo27 with open arms during the 2024 NASA HERC competition, hosting visits to the UAH rover assembly room, practice obstacles and the MAE shop as well, setting the stage for the Dominican Republic students returning the favor in July. The summer STEM conference in Santo Domingo was attended by over 200 people, including students, deans, university upper management, administrators and faculty members from six DR universities and several high schools, as well as DR government officials and many INTEC HERC team sponsors. The UAH team also shared their experiences with over 400 people at the INTEC Apolo27 Team “Celebration Event,” presenting the DR students with a UAH flag and “THESEUS” team shirts, and receiving Apolo27 team shirts in return.
“Thank you to David Fikes, Becky Fikes, Karissa Coggin, Will Ashley, Rosa Rice and Eli Rice for making all this possible,” says INTEC administrator Francisco Estrella, reflecting on the opportunity to see his DR team compete in Alabama, home of Marshall Space Flight Center. “In the mind and heart of every Dominican child who shows some engineering ability, the phrase ‘you will go to NASA’ is something their parents and friends tell them as motivation. In your display of love for your neighbor, you are laying the foundations so that many young people from a small country can dream of being great tomorrow like you.”
“The INTEC students, faculty, dean and sponsors were as warm and friendly as anyone that I have ever been around,” Fikes says. “I look forward to their visit next April for the NASA HERC competition where UAH can reciprocate the hospitality. Their kindness and generosity will long be remembered. The visit by UAH to INTEC and the Dominican Republic has planted seeds of friendship and potential future collaboration between individuals, universities and countries that will bear much fruit in the coming years.”
