Wichita State University
Meet Team CosmoShox: Turning Vision into Reality in NASA SUITS Challenge
What is NASA SUITS?
NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (NASA SUITS for short) challenges students to design and create spacesuit information displays within augmented reality (AR) environments. As NASA pursues landing American astronauts on Mars, the agency will accelerate investing in surface architecture and technology development.
The College of Innovation and Design faciliates an interdisciplinary team to compete in this challenge hosted by NASA. The top teams are invited to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas to participate in Test Week!
This Design Challenge is open to all WSU Students from freshman to PhD Candidates of all backgrounds. Space is limited each year, so be sure to apply early!
We are team Cosmoshox for the NASA SUITS (Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students) Challenge and we are building an augmented reality display with control methods for future generations of spacesuits. The challenge takes place from the Fall 2023 semester through the end of the Spring 2024 semester. We are one of eleven collegiate schools nationwide to be selected for the S.U.I.T.S challenge and to showcase our augmented reality (AR) Heads-Up display (HUD) at the Rock Yard at Johnson Space Center (TX). This accolade was no easy task. We are a group of eight students with four different interdisciplinary backgrounds. Let’s meet the team!
- Denae Sawyer, Master of Innovation and Design
- Desmond Cockrell, Graphic Design
- Elaine Duff, Master of Geology and Planetary Sciences
- Elliott Chambon, Aerospace Engineering
- Marianna Fronciani Farina, Mechanical Engineering
- Nathan Lewis, Master of Innovation and Design
- Savannah Denny, Graphic Design
- Yumi Kikuchi Coronel, Master of Innovation and Design
- Samantha Hein, Game Design
The first step to being a contender for the S.U.I.T.S challenge was to build a proposal. The proposal outlines how the HUD and LMCC (Local Missions Control Center) display would look and interact with each other. Our intellectual team of eight worked day in and day out through the months of October and November to produce our 46-page proposal we named C.O.S.M.O.S, or the CosmoShox Martian Overlay System.
While building our proposal we ventured to the Cosmosphere in Hutchison, which was a team building activity but also it helped us learn more about space suits and space missions. This field trip was very helpful to write a strong proposal.
After we submitted our proposal in November, we eagerly waited for NASA to release the announcement of the Top Eleven teams to advance in the challenge.
In December, WE GOT ACCEPTED! After the announcement we dove right into phase two of the challenge. Phase 2 meant making our proposal a reality.
After Christmas break the team came together to participate in Game Jam, an all-day workshop at Shocker Studios. Through this, we made connections with others on campus that have become mentors and great resources for us. The purpose of the event was to learn the basics of developing an augmented reality in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. At the end of Game Jam we began our first team Sprint.
Team Sprint is a collaborative-goals focused process.
Every day we build team chemistry and rely on each other to produce our best work. We have built a proposal, traveled togteher and have tackled challenges as a team for the NASA S.U.I.T.S Challenge. Every week we are achieving new goals that will get us closer to the completion of our Spacesuit User Interface.