Using NASA's Robotic Mining Competition to Give Students a Quality Systems Engineering Experience

Today’s engineers need to have a thorough understanding of systems engineering to be able to develop the complex systems used in a more connected world. NASA, motivated by its need for engineers with an understanding of systems engineering, developed the Robotic Mining Competition to provide a mechanism by which student can get a hands-on systems engineering experience. This paper discusses how the Robotic Mining Competition is used to provide students with a multidisciplinary, systems engineering learning experience. Specifically, it presents the general design process used by the University of North Dakota Robotic Mining Competition Team. The paper also contains a discussion of how the team evolved from year to year based on their successes and failures.