STEM Challenge Description:
The Sikorsky STEM Challenge is designed to get Connecticut high school students excited about a career in science and technology through a fun interactive project. The challenge involves having student teams work with Mentors from the Sikorsky Engineering community to solve a simulated "real-life" problem via the basic processes and methodologies used every day by engineers and scientists around the world. By the end of the challenge, the students will have gained valuable experience in technical problem solving, project planning, time management, teamwork, and both written and verbal communication.

 Challenge Objectives: 
 Upon completion of the challenge students should be able to:

• Work collectively as a technical team cognizant of business constraints to develop a profitable design and product.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the engineering lifecycle from concept to finished product.
• Demonstrate an understanding for the importance of design requirements and rigorous verification methods.
• Practice time management and adhere to the teams’ project schedule.
• Complete a trade study to quantitatively evaluate your design decisions.
• Enhance presentation and written skills via in-person presentations, video presentations and written reports.

The 2022-23 Mission :   

The Aquaculture STEM Team created a functional prototype for the Urban Autonomous Cargo Transport using the engineering design process. The team was able to design a structural framework that would allow the hoist to lift up to 2 pounds. This framework also included a telescopic arm that was connected via a continuous servo motor which would minimize the sway on the cargo and was supported by a cable for added safety during cargo retraction.  The team also used an Adafruit Feather S2 microcontroller that was programmed to collect input from the ultrasonic sensor and the RGB color sensor and execute the testing commands set forth by the testing team. The design passed with flying colors during the onsite testing at University of New Haven for color detection, cargo pick-up from a drop height of 1 ft and a 2-pound lift capacity from a drop height of 3 ft. The team also submitted a technical report and a presentation with an emphasis on marketing their prototype to the team of Sikorsky engineers. This presentation also included a project schedule, risk and mitigation, trade study, system requirement verification matrix and a test plan for the integrated structural and software framework.  Congratulations to the Aquaculture STEM Team for winning second place in the Sikorsky STEM challenge 2022-23.

The 2021-22 Mission : 
The teams' mission for this year is to design a working prototype for a sensor suite that can identify an ideal landing site and a landing system that can support the weight of the lander for the life of the Mars rotorcraft. Your system will need to be fully autonomous, a predefined flight path has been completed by the engineers at Sikorsky, your system will need to review the surface of Mars to help identify a safe landing zone with no human input.  The design shall adhere to all NASA regulations and Sikorsky requirements.  At the conclusion of the design challenge, your team will demonstrate the sensor system functioning and landing system design, using your manufactured working prototype, an Arduino system and your program to fly a demonstration of the mission for a board of subject matter experts at Sikorsky.  

Aquaculture team secured second place in the Sikorsky STEM challenge 2021-22. Congratulations to the team for their stellar work! 

 Credits and collaboration with LMCO and Sikorsky STEM Challenge.