Moon buggy pulls in attention at science showcase at YSU

By SEAN BARRON

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Isaac Yurco hasn’t exactly taken the popular standard “Fly Me to the Moon” literally, nor has he sunk into a deep depression.

Perhaps the closest the Youngstown State University senior has come to achieving both is a moon buggy he and five other YSU mechanical-engineering majors built and entered into a recent racing competition.

“One of the obstacles was a simulated lunar surface,” Yurco said, referring to the bumpy, craterlike terrain participants of the moon-buggy race at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., endured.

Yurco, along with seniors Mike Kennedy, Jim Davner, Ina Peshel and Kevin Miller, and junior Katie Hyden, took about three months each to design and construct the vehicle.

The six finished 16th of 42 colleges in the competition, Yurco continued.

The device also was one of the many projects an estimated 50 YSU College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics students assembled that were the attractions of Sunday’s annual STEM showcase in YSU’s Moser Hall.

The three-hour event was to highlight the students’ projects, some of which took a year or more to complete, while giving the community a chance to see some of the university’s positive aspects, explained Dr. Martin Abraham, dean of the College of STEM.

Read the full story Monday with photos of the moon buggy and other aspects of the exhibition in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.