At least for now, only a select few have the chance to travel to space and explore. At Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), a team of students designed Dynamic Objective Reaching Autonomous Rovers (DORA), which may someday be useful in surveying the moon’s landscape. DORA, along with its two, small swarm rovers, can collect information about the moon’s physical features, landmarks and environmental conditions autonomously. The data collected can then be used to help create detailed maps of the lunar surface, which saves the astronauts’ time and resources.
It’s all part of the NASA Minority University Research and Education Project Innovative New Designs for Space program, more commonly called NASA MINDS.
The student team
A team of five GGC students, senior Ewura Ama Awere, sophomores Shone Cherian and Jennifer Jimenez-Hernandez and freshmen Tamera Crawford and Anthony Damian, collaborated on DORA. This year, DORA was not only accepted and funded by NASA MINDS, but it also opened the door for the students to be interviewed by NASA.
Sophomore Shone Cherian, who is majoring in information technology, says: “Being interviewed by NASA felt like a full-circle moment. I couldn’t help but reflect on our first NASA MINDS experience and how far we had come since then. It was incredibly validating and meaningful to share the progress we made. I saw the interview as a moment of closure and growth.”
Senior Ewura Ama Awere feels: “After our final presentation, the NASA judges and subject matter experts gave encouraging feedback and thoughtful suggestions for future development. I’m grateful our hard work led to that opportunity, and I hope we’ll continue learning from these supporters to improve our process, research and impact in this field.”
The process
The process of being accepted is rigorous. Dr. Sairam Tangirala, professor of physics, says: “The application is quite involved. It requires not only a budget and a second, detailed application, but also a preliminary design review that was over 20 pages and a systems engineering paper that was nearly 30 pages.”
GGC’s team competed against other colleges and universities nationwide and earned a second place in the poster category for DORA. At GGC, the team also won Best Poster in the Physics, Math, Computer Science, Engineering & Technology Category at the at the 2025 Georgia Academy of Science Conference for their project, “Mapping the Moon’s Surface using Project DORA: Dynamic Objective-Reaching Autonomous Rovers.”
GGC’s participation in NASA MINDS began in 2019. Dr. Tae Song Lee, associate professor of physics, mentored the team. The purpose of participating not only gives students the experience, but also opportunities.
This material is presented with permission from Elliott Brack’s GwinnettForum, an online site published Tuesdays and Fridays. To become better informed about Gwinnett, subscribe (at no cost) at GwinnettForum.
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