Using Telescience to Share NASA Resources During the Classroom Study of a Mars Sample and Return Mission

Richard Hooper¹ , S.V. Sreenivasan¹, and Donald A. Morrison^2
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712
rich_hooper@mail.utexas.edu, sv.sreeni@mail.utexas.edu
²Earth Science and Solar System Exploration Division
NASA/Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas 77058
morrison@snmail.jsc.nasa.gov

Abstract
Exposure to "real-world" engineering applications excites and motivates students by giving them a context in which to interpret their academic work. Industry and government agencies are ideal sources of applications for case study. The requirements these applications generate lend realism to academic studies. Unfortunately, industry and government are seldom collocated with the engineering classroom. This paper describes the use of telescience (sharing scientific resources using long-distance communications technology) to bring remotely-located equipment and expertise into the classroom during the study of a Mars sample-and-return application. The Mars sample-and-return mission requirements serve as a motivation for studying robot dynamics (robots will likely gather the samples). This sort of study naturally requires classroom and homework time. Thus, the paper also looks at the relationship between "exciting" applications study and more traditional lecture, homework, and examinations. Finally, the paper classifies these pursuits according to the role they play as educational tools.

Introduction
This work began with the collaboration of planetary geologists at the NASA-Johnson Space Center (JSC) and robotics engineers at the University of Texas (UT). By working together, JSC gains access to stateof- the-art robotics technology and UT gains access to valuable mission requirements. Due to mutual interest, the collaboration also became to involve a continuing educational initiative in which JSC scientists participate in lectures, projects, and experiments. The two-hundred miles from JSC to UT makes telescience and telecommunications methods attractive for these interactions whenever possible. Intuitively it seems that these
sort of interactions with scientists and engineers from government and industry will excite and motivate the students. Realistically, these interactions also take time away from more traditional methods of educating engineering students. To better understand theses trade-offs, this paper looks at how course components developed during the collaboration relate to traditional lecture, homework, and examinations. Kolb's learning style model forms the basis for the comparison [1].

Though the relationship may seem unusual, there is a sound basis for collaboration between robotics engineers and planetary geologists - particularly with regards to the Mars sample-and-return mission. This is because current mission scenarios envision using robotic mobile platforms and manipulators to gather geological samples. The geologists need to understand the capabilities and limitations of these robots when choosing the variety and location of target samples. The robotics engineers need to understand the mechanical characteristics of the samples and the techniques, such as drill and core, for gathering samples. NASA is interested in gathering samples because they want to study the Martian rocks. Robotics is an enabling technology. Though this paper focuses on course components developed to address the Mars sample-and-return application, with only slight modifications the components would fit equally well with many other applications found in government and industry.

R. Hooper, S. Sreenivasan, D. Morrison. “Using Telescience to Enrich Engineering Education.” Proceedings of the ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference, The University of Houston, 1997, Pages 301-306..