Avery Walters, a third-year civil engineering major in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been named a John Mather Nobel Scholar. The award is given by the National Space Grant Foundation Inc. and was made possible with funding from the John and Jane Mather Foundation for Science and the Arts. Eligible recipients must be undergraduate or graduate student interns at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Walters, a UVA Engineering Rodman Scholar on track to graduate in three years, began interning at Goddard this summer, where he worked on building 3D models of early spacecraft, specifically Soviet “Venera” probes designed to land on Venus. The project involved researching technical documents, photographs and museum models to compile enough information on each spacecraft to produce realistic three-dimensional models using various rendering software products.
“I focused on building a 3D model of the Venera 13 and 14 landers, which were both sent to Venus in 1981,” Walters said. “I used Blender for the 3D modeling, and even did some animations in Autodesk Maya. Animation mostly became a goal after I got to take Computer Animation: Design in Motion with Professor Earl Mark in the School of Architecture over the summer.”
To help with his research, Walters worked with three librarians, Michael Chesnes at NASA; Erich Purpur, UVA research librarian for science and engineering; and Erin Pappas, a humanities librarian at UVA specializing in Slavic languages and literature.
“They each helped me dig through records we have of the Soviet Venera program to find things like technical descriptions, specifications on the landers, photographs and other attempted reproductions,” Walters said. “We even found drawings that demonstrate the deployment process, which can be helpful for making animations.”
The highly competitive scholarship provides a $3,000 travel allowance toward the cost of presenting research papers at professional conferences over two years. Recipients also meet Mather, senior astrophysicist and Goddard Fellow and Nobel Prize recipient, as well as other distinguished individuals. The scholarship program funds originated from Mather's own 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics award.