3 for 3 / SDSU taking all three teams to finals of NASA contest

Friday the 13th brought nothing but good luck to students in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering at South Dakota State University.

On the afternoon of March 13, just before spring break began, Todd Letcher, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was notified that all three of the SDSU teams he oversees had qualified for the finals of the Gateways to Blue Skies competition, which is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA.

That means three of the eight finalists for the national contest are from South Dakota’s land-grant institution.

Letcher said, “The teams have worked incredibly hard this year to reach this point, and I could not be more proud of them. I think all three projects are really cool and can change the industry.” But he admits that when proposals were submitted Feb. 13 to NASA, “I didn’t think they would pick all three just because I thought they might want to spread the finalists around the country.”

The other teams selected were Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Manhattan University, Michigan State, University of California-Irvine and University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Noah Richardson, a sophomore on one of the three teams, said, “We’re very grateful we got in and very excited that they allowed three teams to get in.”

Three chances to defend SDSU’s title

The finals are May 18-19 at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Each of the finalists receives a $9,000 award. Letcher said for SDSU, that will primarily cover the cost of the teams’ trip. The cost of building their projects is offset by a grant from the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium.

The theme for Gateways to Blue Skies changes annually. Last year’s theme was AgAir: Aviation Solutions for Agriculture. That was a drone contest, and SDSU won the national title with STaPLE, a drone that could be used for Soil Testing and Plant Leaf Extraction.

The 2026 theme is “RepAir | Advancing Aircraft Maintenance,” encouraging teams to conceptualize novel aviation maintenance advancements that can be implemented by 2035 or sooner with the goal of improving efficiency, safety and/or costs for the industry.

All three SDSU teams said they made a major effort to think of projects that were out of the box.

Simplified project descriptions

The project titles of the three teams are:

• SPIDER — Surveying Platform and Inspection Device for Enclosed Regions

A crawling, inspection robot designed to operate inside aircraft fuel tanks. Fuel tank access openings are extremely small, and inspections typically require the smallest mechanics to enter after extensive venting to remove fumes. SPIDER would perform these inspections faster and far more safely while navigating a highly regulated and safety-critical area of the aircraft.

• WINGMAN — A smart, AI-enabled pair of glasses designed to assist aircraft mechanics. The system captures images of maintenance tasks, listens to the mechanic during the repair process, and automatically generates a complete maintenance report that becomes part of the aircraft’s service record.
• SPARK — Surface Preservation and Rust Killer Crawler

A suction cup-based crawling robot that attaches to the exterior of the aircraft to perform close-up inspections and minor corrosion repairs. The system includes a camera, a robotic arm with a grinder and aerosol spray systems to treat corrosion when it is detected. It would operate in tandem with an observation drone.

The SPIDER and WINGMAN teams are both comprised of four students who undertook this NASA challenge for their senior design project. SPARK is comprised of four sophomores and one freshman who undertook the challenge as an SDSU Aerospace Club project.

Vital rule: Know your customer

Like last year’s winning entry, which also was a senior design project, this year’s senior design teams participated in the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program. That includes using a customer discovery process that allows teams to quickly assess their inventions' market potential.

Each team talked to about 20 potential customers, initially to brainstorm for ideas and then to refine the concept they decided to pursue.

Matthew Wieberdink, a physics major with a biomedical engineering minor, said, “Lots of people that we talked to said they loved their job, and we wanted to find a way to make their job easier.”

Their contacts ranged from line maintenance technicians to the head of liaison engineering for Delta in Minneapolis as well as Cody Christensen, associate professor in SDSU’s aviation education program. Many contacts were made: Most were over the phone, some were in person, some were on Zoom.

Aviation professionals said inspections and reporting were major time demands. “We asked what could we do to make these inspections more efficient and robust,” said Owen Diede, a teammate of Wieberdink on WINGMAN.

They estimated that their AI-enhanced eyeglasses would cost $1,000 per pair to produce but could make reporting 40% faster and could access information 30% faster to produce a return on investment of $32,000 per pair of glasses, Diede said.

Let the robot do it

Charlie Hartman, a member of SPIDER, said he was aware of “tank divers,” short and skinny mechanics who venture into fuel tanks to check for corrosion, cracks and chaffed wiring. However, after touring the Air National Guard and Poet in Sioux Falls as well as the Brookings Regional Airport, the unenviable job became more centered in the team’s thinking.

Despite venting the tank for 24 hours, “there are constant vapers, their eyes are irritated. It’s a job no one wants to do,” Hartman said.

By having a robot do the work, less time is needed for venting so “there is less time the aircraft is grounded and losing the airline money,” Madyson Wantoch said.

The SPARK squad said it rejected as too common ideas like improving deicing or inspections for framework cracks. Richardson said, “We narrowed it down to 10 ideas. Four had to do with corrosion.” A visit to the Air National Guard in Sioux Falls helped convince them that a suction cup-based crawling robot was the answer to improve efficiency.

Their six-legged, antlike robot is designed to be 14-inches wide and a foot tall with tools to grind, paint and seal the metal.

Teams compete for NASA internship

Blue Skies finalists are not required to build a prototype, but all SDSU teams will do so, though the prototypes may not include all facets of the designed models, Letcher said. “Building a prototype is part of the senior design class and the fun part for our students. It’s why many join the teams — to build things,” he said.

In addition to completing prototypes, in the next six weeks the students will need to expand an earlier-submitted technical paper and prepare for a 30-minute oral presentation.

Team members and their hometowns (all are mechanical engineering majors except Wieberdink):

SPIDER: Mckenna DuFrene, Owatonna, Minnesota; Charlie Hartman, Hutchinson, Minn.; Jon Rames, Sioux Falls; and Madyson Wantoch, Sioux Falls; all are seniors.

WINGMAN: Owen Diede, Shakopee, Minn.; Christian Lee, Sauk Rapids, Minn.; Anders Olsen, Elk River, Minn.; and Matthew Wieberdink, Alexandria, Minn.; all are seniors.

SPARK: Alexis Smith, Madison, Wisconsin; Meloray Linderer, Liberty, Missouri; Teyla Hanson, Blaine, Minn.; and Noah Richardson, Omaha, Nebraska; all are sophomores; and John Worth, freshman, Woodbury, Minn.

Winning team members will be awarded an opportunity to intern at one of the four NASA Aeronautics Centers across the country in the 2026-27 academic school year.