OCTC awarded $40,000 Alcoa grant to design and build rovers

October 8, 2018 | 3:01 am

Updated October 7, 2018 | 11:53 pm

Owensboro Community & Technical College (OCTC), in partnership with Owensboro Public Schools, has received a $40,000 grant from the Alcoa Foundation to promote advanced manufacturing education and careers.

With the award, OCTC will implement the OCTC Manufacturing Scholars Program. The program’s goal is to increase the participation of underrepresented students in manufacturing education and careers.

The project will accomplish this by providing hands-on training experiences in combination with mentorship opportunities, workplace readiness seminars, and industry tours. The project will serve 40-50 students between October 2018 and September 2020.

During the two-year period, students will take college-level advanced manufacturing courses and assist in designing and building rover vehicles. These rovers will be used to compete in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge hosted annually at the U.S Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Students will also participate in an OCTC Rover Race hosted at OCTC in May. The winning OCTC Rover will be displayed at Owensboro High School to help generate the interests of other high school students in pursuing manufacturing education and careers.

October 8, 2018 | 3:01 am

Share this Article

Other articles you may like