For the first time, the University Student Design and Applied Solutions Competition was held at NACE International’s annual CORROSION conference. This competition challenges university students to develop a system for corrosion detection in hard-to-access areas.
The 2018 competition, sponsored by BP (London, United Kingdom), featured teams from eight universities: George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia, USA) Louisiana State University (LSU) (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA), Pennsylvania State University (State College, Pennsylvania, USA), Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas, USA), The University of Akron (Akron, Ohio, USA), the Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA), the U.S. Military Academy (Army) (West Point, New York, USA), and the U.S. Naval Academy (Navy) (Annapolis, Maryland, USA).
Each team built an autonomous system for corrosion inspection to meet specific challenge parameters and specifications in advance of the CORROSION 2018 event in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
At the conference, teams initially took the stage in one of the Corrosive Chronicles theaters to give oral presentations and introduce their prototypes for autonomous corrosion inspection. Teams then demonstrated their robot’s ability to negotiate obstacles and inspect for corrosion in a closed steel box.
At the end of the competition, it was the team from the U.S. Navy that came in first place, followed by LSU in second place, and Army in third place.
To learn more about the University Student Design and Applied Solutions Competition, visit the official web site at
www.usdasc.com.