Michigan tops OSU in bomb-detection competition

U-M students have found yet another way to manifest their rivalry with Ohio State: bomb detection. A team of U-M students, with team advisors AOSS Professor Nilton Renno and Space Physics Research Laboratory Lead Research Engineer Bruce Block, recently won an Air Force-sponsored contest in which they had to find simulated improvised explosive devices in a crowded public square. AOSS students Steve Boland and Ashwin Lalendran were part of the seven-member team.

Suicide bombers carrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs) scatter through a crowded town square. Using technology and engineering principles, you must determine where they are hidden. That was the problem posed to undergraduate engineering students competing June 2-3 against counterparts from The Ohio State University in the inaugural Scarlet and Blue Design Challenge 2009. The competition was sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and presented at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.

For the full story, written by Kevin Brown for the U-M Record Update, visit: http://www.ur.umich.edu/0809/Jun08_09/31.php