OCTC Receives NASA Grant for 2018 Rover Challenge

by Bernie Hale

Owensboro, KY (02/22/2018) — As the only community college competing in the 2017 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge, Owensboro Community & Technical College earned 27th place in the college division after completing two full rounds of the challenging course. OCTC was the 2nd highest placing rookie team.

Dr. Scott Williams, OCTC President added, "Anytime we can give our students experiences that involve applying classroom principles in a real-world environment is awesome. Combining that with NASA and the challenge of working as a team in such a competitive environment really opens the students up to a world of possibilities."

After that spectacular rookie year, OCTC's Rover Team wanted to again rise to the challenge. OCTC's Shawn Payne, led last year's team and wanted to take the lessons learned from that experience and work with students to apply them as improvements for the 2018 competition.

Payne submitted a grant to NASA Kentucky to help support OCTC's participation in the 2018 competition. His grant was awarded in the amount of $10,000.

He credits the teamwork among the student and faculty across many disciplines for their first-year success. "We couldn't have made it without the help from Computerized Manufacturing & Machining (CMM), Industrial Maintenance Technology (IMT), and Welding faculty and students" added Payne.

This year's OCTC Rover Team Committee consists of Randy Crowe and Danny Moseley-OCTC CMM Faculty, Dr. Meredith Skaggs-OCTC Communications Faculty, and Mary Kinney-OCTC's Retention Coordinator and Adjunct Psychology Faculty.

Payne has recently recruited students for the team that will attend the 2018 Rover Challenge in Huntsville, Alabama on April 13-14, 2018. The 2018 team will design a completely new rover.

Community members are invited to attend information sessions on March 1, 2018 at 12:30 p.m. or 2 p.m. in room 210 of the Advanced Technology Center on OCTC's main campus or you may contact shawn.payne@kctcs.edu. Follow this year's progress on facebook.com/octcroverteam.

Owensboro Community & Technical College is one of the sixteen community and technical colleges that make up the Kentucky Community & Technical College System. OCTC serves the KY counties of Daviess, Hancock, Ohio and McLean. OCTC has three campuses in Daviess County and a Center and Annex in Hancock County. OCTC strives to serve the communities in the service area by providing associate degree education for transfer, state of the art technical education for students focusing on entering the workforce, customized business and industry solutions through the Workforce Solutions division, and adult education and business and industry testing through the SkillTrain unit.

The Kentucky Community and Technical College System is the Commonwealth's largest postsecondary institution with 16 colleges and more than 70 campuses. We also are Kentucky's largest provider of workforce training and online education. Through partnerships with business and industry, we align our programs to meet the needs of local employers. We help students fulfill their dreams of creating a better life through programs that lead directly to jobs or help them transfer to one of our four-year partners.

Connect with OCTC: Owensboro.kctcs | Facebook.com/owensboroctc | Twitter@OCTC_Tweets | Instagram OwensboroCTC | youtube.com/c/OwensboroCommunityTechnicalCollege