A student team from South Dakota State University is gaining national attention after taking first place in NASA’s 2025 Gateways to Blue Skies competition; an achievement shaped in part by their experience in the NSF Great Plains I-Corps Hub program.
The annual competition invites university teams to envision future-focused aviation solutions. This year’s theme, AgAir: Aviation Solutions for Agriculture, challenged participants to design systems that could enhance agricultural production, efficiency, and sustainability by the year 2035.
SDSU’s winning entry, the STaPLE drone (Soil Testing and Plant Leaf Extraction), uses GPS-guided automation and artificial intelligence to collect and analyze soil and plant samples. By generating high-quality data, the drone aims to help farmers make more informed decisions while saving time and reducing labor demands in the field.
According to faculty advisor Dr. Todd Letcher, the team’s success came from pairing strong engineering design with the customer discovery principles they learned through I-Corps.
“Through the I-Corps program, our students learned to design products customers actually want, not just what engineers think they want,” Letcher said. “NASA judges specifically mentioned that as one of the reasons our team won first place.”
During their NSF Great Plains I-Corps cohort, team members Nathan Kuehl, Laura Peterson, Keegan Visher, and Nick Wolles conducted interviews with 25 farmers and agronomists. The feedback led them to refine drone system features, workflows, and data processes to ensure the drone met real needs in precision agriculture rather than hypothetical ones.
The result was a highly practical solution grounded in user insights. NASA judges highlighted the drone’s near-term feasibility and clear path to implementation using existing technologies. The team estimates each drone module will cost between $5,000 and $10,000, with potential payback in under a year.
Letcher sees the project as a strong example of how I-Corps principles strengthen STEM innovation.
“This project shows how programs like NSF I-Corps and NASA’s student design challenges complement each other,” he said. “Our students learned how to connect engineering innovation to real customer needs, and that’s exactly what led to their success. That is one of the reasons that I-Corps training is so successful.”