SLA

SLA was very fortunate this past Thursday, April 26th 2007, to host a lecture by Dr. Steven Squyres. Dr. Steven Squyres won the Benjamin Franklin award for Earth and Environmental science this year. He came to talk to SLA as part of the Franklin awards week. He gave a great power point show explaining how the robots that are on Mars now were built, what they are doing there, and what some of the challenges were during the mission. After Dr Squyres did a question and answer section where we got to ask him a lot of great questions.

Dr Squyres talk had everyone's jaw dropped, everyone was so amazed by the work and the photos of Mars. The movie of the robot unfolding itself, the air bags, and the photos of the Mars rocks were just a few of the highlights. Another big highlight was the story about how the robot got stuck in a sand dune and they had to go to Home Depot and get a ton of soil to simulate the Mars surface so they could test ways to get it out. A highlight for Itamar Ben-amos was "the amimation where the robot started spinning around." Jesse Collins reaction to the whole event was "It was beyond amazing! It was so cool he came to talk to us."

SLA is very grateful for having Dr. Steven Squyres come and talk to us. We also would like to thank The Franklin Instiute for our partnership and making this great event happen!