Macalester faculty member Kelly MacGregor and James (Mac) Doherty (’19) spent the summer of 2017 snorkeling in Minnesota rivers examining the role of sediment in native mussel population dynamics. Mac, who received a summer research stipend from the MnSGC, focused on quantifying bed sediment grain size, and found that fine sediment (silt and fine sand) […]
The Bulldog Rocketry Team from the University of Minnesota – Duluth designed and built a rocket, propelled by a student designed hybrid engine, to fly in the 30,000 ft class at the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC). Their rocket finished second in their category in this international rocketry competition. A link to a 14-minute video […]
Augsburg’s aerospace club seeks to spark students’ interests in the applications of physics, mathematics, computer science, and more, through real-world challenges, all while having fun doing so. Although currently focused on rocketry, they hope to soon broaden their work and become the Aerospace Engineering and Robotics Organization (AERO), which would encompass a broader range of […]
Since 2007 the MnSGC at the U of MN – Twin Cities has engaged students in building “near-space-craft” (AKA “payloads”) and using weather balloons to loft them into the stratosphere where the conditions (and the view!) are much like outer space. Student-built payloads carry cameras, microcontroller-logged sensor suites, gps systems, tracking radios, and more. Participants […]
The MnSGC and Tripoli MN, a local high-power rocketry club, are hosting the 2019-2020 Space Grant Midwest High-Power Rocket Competition in May of 2020. In this competition college student teams will design, build, and fly a high-power rocket to accomplish a “Photography/Altitude” challenge in which they will try to minimize roll during ascent to get […]
The MnSGC is running an Intercollegiate Quadcopter Challenge for student teams from colleges and universities around the state. In this six-month-long activity the teams, plus their faculty advisor, will build a quadcopter from a kit, outfit it with camera(s) and microcontroller-logged sensors, then use it to “explore” an indoor area. In-person (AKA fly-off) activities will […]
Rocketry teams from Tribal Colleges and Universities from around the country design, build, and fly rockets at the First Nations Launch in Kenosha, WI, organized by the Wisconsin Space Grant. Leech Lake Tribal College (LLTC) has competed annually since 2011-2012. Students complete a variety of science and engineering challenges. In 2016-2017, LLTC took second place […]
Ballooning teams at the U of MN – Twin Cities, St. Catherine University, and the U of MN – Morris prepared science payloads then flew them from near Grand Island, Nebraska, into the path of totality for the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. (Note: Partial eclipse coverage in MN was over 80%.) The U […]