Jodi Soptic | Daily Nebraskan
The white COVID-19 testing pods that were previously scattered around campus have been retired from their original use of testing, and one is now home to a drone lab.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln stopped providing widespread saliva-based COVID-19 testing in mid-December due to the decline in demand for tests.
The once-mandatory tests were distributed from custom pods that were built in November of 2020 to keep testing easily accessible throughout the year, equipped with a heating and cooling system.
The first pod was given to campus by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, and two additional pods were built later. While they were still serving their original purpose, over 300,000 COVID-19 tests were taken.
Additionally, other COVID-19 protocols on campus have changed. Isolation housing, communications with the COVID-19 email, updates to the COVID-19 dashboard and access to pandemic supplies through the Marketplace are no longer available.
However, testing is still offered at the University Health Center and local clinics. The university will also still allow access to the COVID-19 website, online vaccine registration and wellness stations within classrooms.
Most of the COVID-19 testing pods have been retired and put into storage. However, one of the pods is being used as an on-site teaching and student laboratory space for the Nebraska Intelligent MoBile Unmanned Systems Lab’s drone program. It’s part of the NIMBUS outdoor facility on the Innovation Campus.
The NIMBUS Lab, first created in 2018 by students and faculty members, is funded through various grants. The team’s research focuses on software and systems engineering, in addition to robotics and sensor networks to develop more capable and dependable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
“Since much of our work is on aerial systems that can interact closely with the world, our graduate and undergraduate students spend many working hours outside testing their work,” said Brittany Duncan, co-director of NIMBUS.
According to Duncan, the pod provides the perfect lab space with heating and cooling. They also plan to allow robotics classes to utilize the space to test their systems and have had clubs and other groups rent the facility.
The Nebraska Innovation Campus has other facilities for the NIMBUS program, including a netted flying cage and storage shed. The addition of the COVID-19 pod has allowed the program to expand and open more opportunities to work outside, according to Duncan.
“Overall, our outdoor facility has expanded our capability to test larger systems, multi-agent deployments and to have a safe, comfortable testing area for our students,” Duncan said. “It also allows students to learn and test their work in a space that has much of the richness provided by our field deployments (wind, GPS, clouds, etc.) while providing the comfort of a lab space.”
news@dailynebraskan.com
More details at: https://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/covid-19-testing-pod-repurposed-for-drone-program/article_2814fc40-a1be-11ed-9b40-0f30b366bede.html