There are currently seven teams within the SEI program: four at the main campus in College Station; one at A&M Commerce; one at A&M Kingsville, and one at A&M Prairie View. The students work on projects with elements ranging from chemistry to physics to electronics to robotics. Below are all of the teams with a short description of each of their projects. Click on a team's name to view more information about the projects and the current team members.
Texas A&M researchers have developed a storable chip that can be used to detect life, as well as to detect harmful substances in an enclosed environment. This chip can identify numerous substances based on the identification of various analytes (i.e. molecules, proteins, DNA, etc.). This system uses a lipid bylayer suspended on a Teflon chip to house a single protein nanopore, and an electrical current sent through the protein is monitored for fluctuations. A change in current flow indicates that one of the targeted analytes has passed through the nanopore; the change in current flow is specific for each analyte. The current system works well in the lab, but it is too bulky and not suitable for space applications. The Biosensor Materials team proposes to redesign the current system to provide additional functionality to make it suitable for space applications and to reduce its size and weight. In particular, due to the sensor's sensitivity to vibration and acoustic excitations, the team proposes to design and test an isolation system that will eliminate test data contamination due to these external disturbances. The proposed experiment is a proof-of-concept to verify that hte protein nanopore chip works in a reduced-gravity environment. The data collected from this experiment will be compared to the results of similar ground-based tests to determine the effectiveness of such a sensor in microgravity and thus its potential use for space applications. A successful test of this sensor in microgravity will provide NASA engineers another approach to aid in the further development of technologies used in future roles in space endeavors.
Robots provide an ideal solution for aiding humans in completing dirty, dull, and dangerous tasks. In order to do this effectively, however, robots must operate with minimal human supervision or instruction; in other words, the robots should be autonomous agents. But if robots are to be truly autonomous, they must be able to sense, compute, and communicate. The purpose of this project is to design (or improve on existing designs) and assemble a cooperative team of robots. Each robot will be outfitted with a microprocessor, various sensors, and a transceiver/receiver so that it may act in an autonomous manner while communicating with other robots so that the overall team completes various tasks in a cooperative way. Emerging technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) will also be explored and incorporated.
In the near future, teleoperable rovers will be exploring the Moon and Mars. The Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) is one of a handful of systems being looked at to enhance the teleoperation interface. It allows for a real-time 3D view of the rover's environment with both real and synthetic images, as well as customizable heads-up displays (HUDs). The CAVE Team will set up a two-screen, 3D CAVE that will interface with TAMU's DARPA truck as well as NASA's SCOUT rover. The 3D image will update with respect to latitude, longitude, pitch, roll, and heading of the vehicles. For the fall semester, the team will focus on setting up the hardware, creating GPS-related synthetic environments, and learning how to transfer data across wireless networks. In the spring, the team will focus on teleoperating the DARPA truck and the SCOUT rover and optimizing the HUDs for each.
Thus far in space exploration, mission durations have not been long enough to require water reclamation (recycling). Water is currently launched in the shuttle, and wastewater is returned to Earth or dumped in flight. However, NASA is now looking to return to the moon in 2015. Each mission to the moon will help to construct a lunar colony which will allow for preparations to be made for human exploration of Mars. In both a lunar and a Martian colony, water resupply is not a feasible option due to cost constraints and the length of travel. Therefore, a method of water reclamation must be established in order to pursue longer-duration space flight. An additional complication to the wastewater component of spaceflight is that urine must be pretreated with chemicals in order to be collected in space. The lack of gravity requires the urine collection system to consist of small diameter tubes. These tubes are susceptible to clogging through the formation of precipitates or a biofilm. Therefore, urine is currently pretreated with the oxidizing agent oxone and sulfuric acid in order to inhibit bacterial growth and precipitation within the wastewater collection tubes. This form of pretreatment is highly toxic and would not allow for a closed loop water system. Introducing toxic chemicals into the water supply would pose a danger for human consumption, and it would eliminate the possibility of using a bioreactor to reclaim the wastewater. Therefore, a non-toxic pretreatment alternative must be identified in order to be able to reclaim water during long duration space missions. The goal of the Pretreatment Team is to determine a non-toxic pretreatment agent which will prevent urine precipitation and bacterial growth while allowing for water reclamation.
