Teams are invited to participate in the 28th Design/Build/Fly competition. The mission for 2024 will be defined later, but traditionally it focuses on the design, build and test of an electric aircraft. The goal is a balanced design possessing good, demonstrated flight handling qualities and practical and affordable manufacturing requirements while providing a high vehicle performance.

In support of NASA’s Artemis mission which will involve humans returning to the Moon, there are ambitious plans to explore little-known regions of the Moon for unique features and resource prospects. There is an important need to develop a rover platform that is fully instrumented to explore Lunar south pole craters and analyze surface and near-subsurface geological formations to prospect for resources. High-priority resources include oxygen, water, aluminum, iron, titanium, silica, and platinum. The prospecting rover needs to have the capability to operate independently of other planned lunar assets. The rover will need to communicate back with Earth using NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). The rover must perform as much in-situ geological science to support prospecting. Where possible, the rover may cache obtained samples for pickup by a future sample return mission. The rover needs to operate for at least 90 Earth days and upload a detailed prospecting report that provides estimates of surface resource reserves. The student team will perform this rover design work as part of the NASA RASCAL 2023/2024 Competition. The work will begin with concept design and culminate with detailed design and prototype development in the second semester.

In support of NASA’s Artemis mission which will involve humans returning to the Moon, there are ambitious plans to explore little-known regions of the Moon for unique features and resource prospects. There is an important need to develop a rover platform that is fully instrumented to explore Lunar south pole craters and analyze surface and near-subsurface geological formations to prospect for resources. High-priority resources include oxygen, water, aluminum, iron, titanium, silica, and platinum. The prospecting rover needs to have the capability to operate independently of other planned lunar assets. The rover will need to communicate back with Earth using NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). The rover must perform as much in-situ geological science to support prospecting. Where possible, the rover may cache obtained samples for pickup by a future sample return mission. The rover needs to operate for at least 90 Earth days and upload a detailed prospecting report that provides estimates of surface resource reserves. The student team will perform this rover design work as part of the NASA RASCAL 2023/2024 Competition. The work will begin with concept design and culminate with prototype development in the second semester.

Human civilization faces several potential man-made and natural catastrophes that threaten to wipe out Earth’s rich biodiversity. The Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway was constructed to store plant seeds vital for world’s food supply. It, however, faces the dangers of flooding from rising sea levels/melting of the North Pole due to accelerated climate change. A proposed future alternative would be to store Earth’s rich biodiversity in the form of DNA, eggs, sperm, and specialized cells under cryogenic conditions in the Moon’s lava tubes. However, to practically unfreeze and prepare the biodiversity for reintroduction to Earth will likely require a series of space-based terrariums located between Earth and the Moon. The proposed project is to conceptualize, design and build a prototype space-based terrarium inside a 3U Centrifuge CubeSat with a total mass of 4 kg and a total volume of 3000 cm3. It is to operate in Low Earth Orbit for 1-2 years. A team of students will perform systems design, design of mechanical, electrical, thermal, GNC (Guidance Navigation, Control), and science-payload design. The prototype end-product is a working prototype with stand-in COTS components for the spacecraft hardware. The proposed prototype-space-based terrarium is intended to test technologies and operational capability in preparation for the design of a larger, more capable terrarium intended to be placed in the Earth-Moon-Sun L2 Lagrange point. This L2 terrarium is meant to be self-sustaining for 30-50 years.

The sensor board will need to be able to measure a) Electrical Potential, b) Impedance, c) Optical Transmission, d) Sound and e) Resistance. This will allow recording a three lead electro cardiogram, body fat and water composition, arterial blood oxygenation, heart sound, temperature and strain. The sensors should interface with the Raspberry Pi. The customer of the project will be educators and students. The design should be modular so that the user can decide to use one, multiple or all sensors. One approach could be to design a Hardware Attached Top (HAT) that includes a microcontroller to communicate with sensor modules. An other is to use an extension cable to avoid size limitations of a HAT. The team will receive existing tested designs for impedance and resistance measurements but will need to come up with a new design to measure sound and verify and test designs for pulse oximetry and electrocardiography (depending composition of the team). The team will need to focus on manufacturability and simplicity of software and integration of multiple sensors in an educational setting. Standards for safe operation of the sensors will need to be considered.

The requirements for this project require students to be creative, explore, and enjoy the design process while maintaining professional and respectful relationships with each other. The primary objective is to conceptualize a mechanical and chemical that would be used to repurpose hemp/cannabis biomass into usable raw materials that can replace fossil fuel base materials.

Research and Development:
- Investigate existing sustainable and eco-friendly technologies for converting biomass into biobased raw materials.
- Endeavor to enhance, amalgamate, emulate, or innovate using existing concepts, or develop new ones.

Communication:
- For clarifications or proposing novel ideas, students are encouraged to email the sponsor. If further discussion is required, they may feel free to call the sponsor at 520-839-9845.
- Maintain open communication with peers, mentors, and the sponsor.

Collaboration Protocols:
- Engage in group brainstorming sessions, ensuring all ideas are given due consideration and respect.
- Each participant should establish an initial rapport with the sponsor to foster trust.
- The team leader is expected to connect with the sponsor weekly, ideally for a 10-15 minute update.
- Bi-weekly meetings involving the entire team should be planned and adhered to.
- Allow for individual autonomy.

Confidentiality and Intellectual Property:
- Maintain discretion concerning project details, limiting discussions to teammates, relevant faculty, and other University of Arizona stakeholders.
- Students will be asked to review and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to safeguard any intellectual property emerging from this project.


Above all, open and clear communication with team members, mentors, and the sponsor is of paramount importance.

Problem Statement: Civil security reconnaissance is invaluable to the operations of the Border
Patrol, Law Enforcement, and first responders in every type of environment. Although there are
large-scale assets available for these ground forces, the immediacy aspect of reconnaissance is
tough to satisfy for the emergency real-time surveillance information.

Solution: A low-cost, light-weight networked, aerial reconnaissance solution implemented by
ground forces on demand, no waiting for assets, no call for crew served air support, could make a
difference. System could also serve as fixed surveillance camera to monitor a suspected traffic
route, a complex urban scene, for first responder’s hazard assessment.
Concept of Employment: The operator turns the STAR round on and establishes the video link
with their hand-held display unit (smart phone, tablet, etc.) Then the operator launches the round
at the high-loft angle by using a standard issue flare pistol or maximum 40 mm caliber launcher.
Once at altitude, The STAR will provide wide angle field of view to the operator while holding
the station without burden to the operator. Altitude and time on station are to be refined; for the
point of departure, they are greater than 100 meters above ground level (AGL) and 5 minutes,
respectively. Image quality (resolution, stability etc.) must be sufficient for the operator to assess
the situation in real-time (for example, distinguish a threat: is a person holding a pistol or a
cellphone?)

Project Scope: This Phase 2 is the continuation of the 2022 Phase 1 effort, when the design team
had conducted the design, procurement, fabrication, and limited design verification testing of the
most critical technology elements and subsystems. The Phase 2 team will conduct necessary
design changes, performance analysis, procurement, fabrication, integration, verification, and
tests to deliver an integrated, form-factored STAR system (including a smart phone/tablet App to
initialize and launch the round, and to display the projected picture). The system must be
inexpensive (single time use), light-weight (easy to carry and non-destructive when falls) and
environmentally friendly, must not expose the operator to any harm and must be constructed
with common obtainable materials to simplify the procurement (51% of the system must be
constructed in the U.S.) It is acceptable to demonstrate the capability with 40 mm caliber
pneumatic launcher. It is desired that the system has future network expansion capability (several
STAR systems generate integrated surveillance view)

NEED:
Security forces, first responders, vehicles, UAVs and autonomous
systems are increasingly reliant on GPS in order to maneuver,
navigate, and reach their destination, leading to an extreme
vulnerability if GPS is jammed, disrupted, or otherwise made
unavailable.
OBJECTIVE:
The Localized Temporarily Deployable Adaptive Navigation
Network (LTDANN) is a method to overcome this vulnerability
using a multi-transmitter nodal network to provide relative and
absolute locationing without relying on the Global Positioning
System satellites. Initial program would be development of proof of concept 4 node network
to demonstrate algorithms, positioning accuracy, and robustness

Develop Useful Simulation
Develop and Integrate key hardware devices
Build Hardware (4 nodes + receiver)
Demonstrate communication between nodes
Demonstrate determination of range between two nodes
Demonstrate position agreement between 3 nodes
Introduce nodes with no known position and demonstrate position solving
Demonstrate receiver position solving

Small commercial drones equipped with cameras and/or other potentially lethal payloads are a persistent challenge for our DOD and national security organizations. These drones are difficult to see or hear until they are already in the effective threat perimeter. There is a need for a standoff detection and tracking capability to spot these potential threats at an actionable distance before they represent a tactical threat to military or high value government personnel.
The “D2TAS” system would allow security forces to detect and track small UAS that pose a potential threat to military and government personnel.

This system will be portable, and will be able to detect various sizes of quad copter or octo-copters at a slant distance of 100m to 500m or beyond. The system should be able to provide an azimuth and elevation value as to where the drone threat is located and also track the movement of the one drone.

The Rescue 21 program provides dispatch consoles to the US Coast Guard to provide command and control activities for the radio communication system. The console has an audio interface device for headsets and desk microphones and also distributes audio streams to several speakers. The purpose of this project is to redesign the audio interface device that will feed these speakers and take in the microphone inputs to interface with the rest of the system. Students will also develop software to demonstrate the audio system operation and verify system requirements.

This project will require integrating hardware and software. Students will get the opportunity to work on multiple Engineering disciplines and work with the following:
• Audio processing – DAC and ADC
• Basic audio circuit design
• Perform trade study to select hardware to meet requirements
• Design system and build PCB prototypes
• Software development to test system
• Work with GDMS to integrate prototype with production equipment