2015-10-21: Autonomy Incubator Hosts Booth at the Hampton Roads Transportation Expo

Carol Castle and Rebecca Goodpasture represented NASA LaRC Autonomy at the Hampton Roads Transportation Expo. Groups across the transportation, infrastructure and construction industries hosted booths and spoke with educators and high school students about career opportunities.

Carol Castle and Rebecca Goodpasture at the NASA LaRC Autonomy Incubator booth.

Along with our representatives from the Autonomy Incubator team, Mike Logan of the Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SUAVE) Lab fielded questions pertaining to mechanical engineering and UAV projects. Mike brought two UAVs that were designed at NASA Langley, as well as a virtual reality headset to demonstrate the "first person" flying experience of UAVs with attached cameras. Most of the kids in attendance expressed an interest in learning to design and develop similar vehicles.

Many students that we talked to were surprised at the wide array of research that is currently underway at NASA Langley, and we touched upon current projects involving air quality and climate change, the development of Lunar Habitats, the work our team and the SUAVE Lab are doing with autonomy and UAVs, and so on. Correspondingly, there is a range of educational backgrounds and skills that are needed for the overall success of the center as well as on each project. We talked to students interested in chemistry, medicine, engineering, computer vision, psychology, social media, business, atmospheric science, and more.

Students interested in internship opportunities at Langley should check out the NASA student portal (https://intern.nasa.gov), which offers opportunities for current students in high school, college, as well as recent college graduates. Educators that would like to schedule a visit to their class from a NASA Langley representative can do so through our Langley Research Center Speakers Bureau (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/speakers.html).