Our Story
Back in December 2019, Shovon was reading a daily newspaper where he was fascinated to notice a team from Bangladesh is on its way to US Space & Rocket Center to participate in the annual event of NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge. A question arose in his mind what if he would try the same. But, it was never a simple sentence to execute. Let's explore what makes Shovon's plan work out.
Shovon, first of all, shared this idea with his friend Kawsar who had pushed him a lot to present it to the faculty members. Muhammad Iftakhar Alam, one of Lectures of the School of IT had greatly appreciated it. Not only that, H M Mostafizur Rahman, the Coordinator of the Department had shown his profound interest to make this dream come true.
It was winter morning at BAC International Study Centre. The faculty members asked Shovon to discuss with other classmates and thus, to invite them to build a project team. Painfully, none of them believed it would be possible and they made a fun out of it.
But, Shovon was very determined and he knew what to do when. He was persistently trying to convince them nothing is impossible if all the endeavors are summoned against a strong willpower. Whatever the tricky questions asked, he had gently answered them all without any hesitation.
When all came to know it very clear, Shovon's team constantly became heavier. Finally, almost all of them joined the team. The game had started!
NASA HERC is not only a race. It involves diverse works like planning, designs, assembling and fabrication, marketing, fundraising and so on. That is why, the project team was divided into three basic divisions, they are - Planning, Designs and Safety Division, Engineering Division and Marketing, Outreach and Public Relations Division. After several meetings with teachers and team members, a project timeline was prepared and the each division had independently started their respective work.
The team thought it had nearly a year before the registration for the competition. However, everything had been changed as a severe consequence of Covid-19 outbreak. The team had to pause its initiative.
Early in June 2020, Shovon managed to bring people back to the mission with the help of Mr. Iftakhar Alam, the Co-ordinating Advisor of the team.
The team used to work from home and evening 7 turned as a fixed schedule. Every night was delighted with discussions and debates. Ridiculously, a few joined the session at the last moment and refueled the arguments. It seemed like the team got into a never-ending loop. Indeed, coming to one decision became a nightmare!
Some of the members who had exaggerated their potentials and held the leading positions just ran away once after the departmental tasks were assigned. When they were left, the team lacked manpower and required skillset.