Exploring the Final Frontier
Written by Joie Colobong
This summer, fifteen interns and volunteers worked under the watchful eye of the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES) in an effort to help the Big Island of Hawaii move closer to becoming a pioneer in space exploration. Among this group of committed assistants was UH Hilo student Casey Pearring, who now serves as the Robotics Technician for the Hilo-based government aerospace agency.
Pearring, a graduate of Hilo High School and a senior majoring in Computer Science, credits his participation in a summer space camp called Future Flight for several years during his childhood with piquing his interest in space. “I may not have realized it back then, but those early ventures into science probably sparked my interest into space,” he says.
Pearring also believes science fiction may have played a role in developing his interest in exploring the final frontier. “I suppose works of science fiction in text or media also made me wonder what life would be like if I was to be born a couple hundred years in the future where spaceflight is hopefully the norm, and we would have figured out a way to transfer information directly into our brains, rather than spending hours trying to learn. I suppose I hope that in the future, life is a lot 'cooler' than it is today,” he says.
Apart from those early summer camp experiences, however, it wouldn't be until high school when his involvement with robotics, or anything space-related, would become more substantial.
In June 2014, Pearring became PISCES’ new Robotics Technician upon the departure of former Robotics Technician and fellow Hilo High School Robotics member Max Kerr, who left to attend Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “As I was a fellow robotics programmer from the past, [Kerr] referred me to PISCES and I gladly took the torch to continue his work,” Pearring says.
The PISCES planetary rover, Alpha Argo, and its team. Pictured (from left to right): Casey Pearring, volunteer Matt Takemoto, former PISCES Robotics Technician Max Kerr, and Project Manager Rodrigo Romo. (Photo provided by Casey Pearring)
One project that this summer’s PISCES interns and volunteers took on was the building of a planetary rover on loan from Canada-based firm Ontario Drive and Gear and christened “Alpha Argo” – a project Pearring remains a part of in his role as Robotics Technician. “Right now with PISCES I'm working on a lunar rover to be used to test various pieces of equipment for future lunar/martian rovers before it's actually sent up into space. The rover can also be used as a test bed for other hardware like school science projects for the community,” Pearring says.
“There are several main parts of the rover that I'm currently working on; you could call them 'mini-projects',” Pearring elaborates. “This includes video feed/image processing, programming the rover to be fully autonomous, networking the rover for long distance communication, command and control interface for users, a time-delay system to emulate the feedback lag between actual rovers on the moon/mars and drivers on earth, a linked autonomous quad-copter/drone for aerial reconnaissance, and anything else that comes up.”
Out of everything he’s gained from his time with PISCES, Pearring says one of the most valuable things he’s learned is the importance of documenting everything. “It may seem quite trivial, but it's one aspect of work that often gets dismissed because it seems so easy at the time,” Pearring says. “Since I have so many different mini-projects I'm working on, any change, success, failure, or anything really should always be written down not just for you, but for anyone that might need it. It's not surprising that many similar problems pop up, and having a solution written down will help you a ton, especially when turning to the Internet for help fails.”
Pearring offers some sound advice to people considering working with PISCES, whether as an intern or a volunteer. “I would tell [those people] to keep their mind open to new things, be ready to learn quickly, and beware that working on an actual project is a lot different from those in class,” he says. “However, it's a lot of fun and you can't replace this experience with anything almost anywhere.”
For more information on PISCES’ objectives, internships and projects, please visit pacificspacecenter.com.
