2000 N.C. State offers some of the best engineering programs in the country. Members of the NCSU Aerial Robotics Club are already at work on preparing for the June 2001 competition. Oppenheimer said that the club got started at the beginning of the semester and that it currently includes about 40 members. Each year, schools around the world enter the International Aerial Robotics Competition, held at the end of June. Co-sponsoring this year's International Aerial Robotics Competition are the U.S. Department of Energy, the Sierra Nevada Corporation, NovAtel Global Positioning Systems Inc. and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems, International.
Teams entering the competition have to follow a relatively complex set of rules.
Each team's entry must be an aircraft that will fly three full kilometers to a house of known Global Positioning Systems coordinates. Built and ready for competition, the aircraft has to fly through an open window of the house that will host the competition. Once inside, the aircraft has to take and relay pictures from each room in the house back to the ground stations. NCSU Professor Chuck Hall will work closely with the club to ensure that its entry is ready for the 2001 competition. A university policy mandates that the NCSU team, should it win the international competition, will have to work the money back to the students.