Moonbuggy race

Cape Girardeau Central High School students will participate in NASA's Great Moonbuggy Race for the third year this year; the race is Saturday and Sunday in Huntsville, Ala.

Central, the only team from Missouri, is one of more than 100 teams that will participate. The race is designed to emulate driving on the rocky terrain of the moon's surface. The teams will race their buggies along a gravel track over steep hills as part of the contest.

Each team in the race designs and builds its own moonbuggy, which must support two riders, be lightweight and portable. It has to be folded to fit inside a 4-by-4-by-4 foot box, and part of the race is the team carrying it, then assembling it.

Before any actual building took place, the team created the buggy using a computer program that designed a simulated model.

"Our biggest concern is getting through the course in one piece," said Husam Wadi, a senior.

While Wadi and his team members have worked out the design details of the buggy, the benefits of this race come in the big picture. Learning how to build a machine in the context of teamwork is a priceless learning experience that will help prepare these young engineers for the real world.

"You kind of forget about the teaching aspect because it's almost like a hobby," said Colin Sheridan, an instructor at the Cape Girardeau Area Career and Technology Center. "It's not a regular opportunity that most people get -- to build [a moonbuggy] themselves then try it out."

What a great experience for these eight students: Wadi, Donovan Shovan, Riley Smith, James Scheller, Colin Keele, Dalton Buchanan, Kendra Kelch and Zach Rhodes. We're rooting that they do well in Alabama.