Meet the Grads, Nicholas Ohi: A robotics experience beyond this world

Nicholas Ohi was the lead programmer for the WVU Robotics team that would go down in history as being the first and only school to win the NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge and more than $850,000 in prize money. (WVU Photo/Paige Nesbit)

Nicholas Ohi knew from a young age that he was interested in science and engineering but had no idea where that would one day lead. 

Story by Brittany Furbee, Communications Specialist

Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

The Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at West Virginia University wasn’t even on Ohi’s radar until he joined a robotics club in high school.  

“What really put me on track to study engineering at the Statler College was joining the Mountaineer Area Robotics team in high school,” said Ohi, a doctoral aerospace engineering student from Morgantown. “As a member of MARS, I immediately took interest in the autonomous portion of the competition, learning what it took to make robots perform tasks without direct human control.”  

His interest in robotics led him to the Statler College, where he became a member of WVU Robotics, a decision that would soon pay off. 

Beginning in 2015, the WVU Robotics team competed in the NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge, a multi-year competition that offers a total $1.5 million to teams who can create an autonomous robot that can locate and retrieve sample types from various locations over difficult terrain and return those samples to a designated zone in a specified amount of time.  

Ohi participated all three years in the competition, serving as the team's lead programmer and autonomy lead. The WVU Robotics team went on to become the first school to win the Challenge in the event's five-year history, earning them more than $850,000 in prize money.  

“My experience developing the mission planning autonomy for our robot Cataglyphis that was used in the competition taught me a lot about the challenges of making robots work in complex real-world situations,” Ohi said. “Our team worked incredibly hard for each of the three years we competed. Becoming the only team to ever successfully complete the challenge was an amazing achievement.”  

Although momentous, winning the NASA Challenge was only the beginning for Ohi. He set his sights on applying for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, a highly competitive grant that provides funding to a select group of graduate students to help with their research efforts.   

During the application processes, Ohi leaned on the advice of his faculty advisor and mentor Yu Gu, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and adjunct associate professor in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.  

“I am especially grateful for the support and mentorship provided by my advisor Dr. Yu Gu,” Ohi said. “He taught me a lot about how to be a researcher, how to ask the right questions and how to set significant but achievable research objectives. He also guided me on how to apply for funding and how to write successful research proposals.”  

Ohi was selected from close to 17,000 applications for the fellowship program. NSF fellows receive a $34,000 annual stipend for three years, a $12,000 cost of education allowance, opportunities for international research and the liberty to choose their own course of research at an accredited university. Ohi’s research focused on improving robotic decision making in unmodeled situations.  

“My experience with programs at the Statler college, particularly my experience in developing robotic autonomy for the NASA Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge, combined with guidance from Dr. Gu, enabled me to write a successful research proposal,” Ohi said.   

Due to his research and expertise related to improving Mars rover autonomy, Ohi was one of the WVU Robotics graduate students selected through an internal competition to spend three months working as a visiting student researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.  

“The opportunity to work at NASA JPL was an amazing experience for me,” said Ohi. “I got to work directly with NASA JPL robotics researchers who are developing new technologies that will enable future Mars rovers and other interplanetary missions to operate with better autonomy.”  

Ohi has accomplished a lot during his tenure at the Statler College, but he hasn’t forgotten where he got his start in robotics.  

“Throughout undergrad and grad school, I have made it a point to volunteer as a mentor for my former high school robotics team,” Ohi said. “Whether you are in high school or college, I encourage everyone to get involved in projects and competitions. Try to work on interdisciplinary projects and learn how to communicate and work with researchers that have different backgrounds and skillsets than you do. You will learn a lot by stepping outside of your field and exposing yourself to more diverse topics and ways of thinking.”  

As he prepares to graduate in December, Ohi is focused on finding a career that allows him to tie in all his unique experiences from the Statler College.  

“I am looking for a career that will enable me to work on solving challenging robotics problems that improve humanity’s scientific understanding of both the universe and our own planet, as well as to improve the lives of all people through bringing robot autonomy into the real-world,” Ohi explained. “The opportunity to do both hands-on applied research and more fundamental research on robotic autonomy has provided me with a wealth of experience that will be invaluable to me in my career.”  

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