SDSU students win NASA competition
BROOKINGS, S.D. (KELO) —Four SDSU students are reaching for the stars and are doing extremely well in the process.
Laura Peterson just graduated from SDSU with a mechanical engineering degree. She is also part of the team that was one of eight finalists for NASA's Gateways to Blue Skies contest.
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'They gave us the project statement of finding an aviation solution to an agricultural problem by the year 2035,' SDSU mechanical engineering graduate Laura Peterson said.
Peterson's team put together the STaPLE drone, which stands for Soil Testing and Plant Leaf Extraction.
'We ended up interviewing a number of farmers and finding out that a pain point for them is just soil and tissue sampling. That's something that takes a long time, and it's important for them to understand the nutrients of their fields,' Peterson said.
'One is a soil testing module that's able to test the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the soil. And the other module is our we call it leaf extraction drone, and that one is able to locate the top fully most developed leaf of a corn plant. And it's able to grab onto that leaf, cut it and store it for later lab analysis,' SDSU mechanical engineering graduate, Nathan Kuehl said.
Aside from being in the top eight teams, SDSU also won the contest. There are a few things that the students believe set their project apart from the rest.
'Having two people on our team that grew up on farms was really helpful. We had a lot of connections to people that were able to give us a lot of really good information about sampling and what they're looking for in that,' Peterson said.
'We were actually the only team out of those eight that actually brought a working prototype with. So I think that's kind of what pushed us over the edge a little bit,' Kuehl said.
The other schools in the competition were from across the nation, including Boston University and UC Davis.
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