Department of Mechanical Engineering at South Dakota State University

06/05/2026

Heartiest congratulations to our student team SELENE, who earned the Best in Theme Award in the Lunar Sample Return Concept category at the 2026 NASA 2026 RASC-AL Competition. This marks the fourth consecutive year a team from the SDSU Mechanical Engineering Department has reached the RASC-AL finals and received a competition award. A remarkable achievement that reflects the dedication, talent, and passion of our students.

The SELENE team is made up of six first- and second-year students: Gavin Neu, Bryson Love, Rylie-Sky Stoll, Rachel Ziegeldorf, Alex Diersen, and Bennett Foster. The faculty advisor is Dr. Todd Letcher.

Congratulations once again!

https://rascal.nianet.org/2026-finalist-teams/

05/21/2026

Thrilled to share that our space design team, WINGMAN, won first place in the 2026 Competition. This marks the second consecutive year that an SDSU Mechanical Engineering team has captured the championship. Unlike last year, when we had only one team participating in the finals, this year three of the eight finalist teams came from our department. I could not be more proud of our brilliant students and their inspiring advisor, Todd Letcher!

A South Dakota State University team took first place at NASA’s fifth annual Gateways to Blue Skies Competition, which challenged student teams to address a

05/21/2026

Heartiest congratulations to our Formula SAE team, Wild Hare Racing, on achieving a historic 29th place finish out of 140 collegiate teams from the United States, Spain, Brazil, Italy, and Canada at the 2026 Formula SAE Competition – the best performance in team history! A big shoutout to our outstanding students, faculty advisor Douglas Peters, and everyone who supported this remarkable achievement!

Wild Hare showcased outstanding commitment by participating in every event to the best of their abilities, resulting in a notable 29th place standing among 120 teams. Their achievements are truly commendable and we are all proud of them.

04/30/2026

At this year’s Engineering Banquet, Professor Stephen Gent received the Lohr Outstanding Faculty Award, and Lecturer John VerSteeg was honored with the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, both presented by Provost Dennis Hedge and Dean Sanjeev Kumar. Congratulations to our outstanding faculty on their well-deserved honors!

04/21/2026

I am pleased to share that our Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) team placed 8th in this year’s ASME EFx e-HPVC Competition. Composed of sophomores and juniors, the team earned 5th place in the Design Event, 7th in the Drag Race, and 16th in the Endurance Race. Congratulations to our dedicated students and their advisor, Dr. Gregory Michna!

04/21/2026

Congratulations to Dr. Saikat Basu on receiving a 3-year grant from ARPA-H. His project, “LEGO-like assembly of perfusable ECM cubes to generate tissue-agnostic, suturable, organ-sized, viable and functional grafts”, will develop a physics-based, multiscale, multiphase computational framework to quantify and optimize nutrient transport and perfusion in liquid media.

04/16/2026

I am thrilled to share that a team of our students, including five sophomores and one freshman, earned 2nd place in the Remote Control Division at the NASA Human Exploration Rover Competition (HERC) in Huntsville, Alabama. This marked our students’ first participation in HERC, where they competed against college teams primarily composed of juniors and seniors! In addition to this achievement, the team had the opportunity to present their rover to the Director of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and other NASA VIPs. They also toured the Marchal Space Flight Center, saw the Saturn V rocket, and participated in the Artemis II Splashdown Party in downtown Huntsville. The official NASA announcement is here:

NASA’s 32nd annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge, one of the agency’s longest-standing student challenges, culminated April 10-11 with its final excursion

03/24/2026

Congratulations to our junior student, Jacob York, who has received the Joseph F. Nelson Award for Undergraduate Research from the Van D. and Barbara B. Fishback Honors College. This award will support Jacob in pursuing impactful research under the guidance of his faculty mentor, Dr. Solaiman Tarafder.

03/22/2026

Congratulations to our Aerospace Club team SELENE (Sample Extraction of Lunar Elements for Network Entry) for being selected as a finalist in the 2026 NASA RASC-AL Competition—marking the fourth consecutive year that a team from our department has reached the finals of this prestigious national competition.

This year’s team includes four freshmen and two sophomores who are participating purely out of their passion for aerospace engineering, without receiving course credit. They will compete against teams from many of the nation’s top aerospace universities as they design a lunar sample return mission concept capable of preserving samples under lunar conditions for scientific study on Earth.

We are incredibly proud of these outstanding students and grateful for the mentorship and leadership of Todd Letcher, whose dedication continues to inspire our students to achieve at the highest level.

Please join me in congratulating the team and wishing them great success in the final competition! The NASA announcement about the finalists is available here:

03/13/2026

I am excited to share that three of the eight finalist teams selected for the final stage of this year’s NASA Getaways to Blue Skies Competition come from our department! Two of the teams are senior design teams, and the third consists of members of our Aerospace Club, including freshmen and sophomores. The final will take place near NASA Langley Research Center in mid-May. Please join me in congratulating our students and their advisor, Todd Letcher, and wishing them the very best in the upcoming final.

NASA has selected eight student teams as finalists in the 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Competition, giving them the resources to