South Dakota State University

"Thrill Me," a fall production by the theatre and dance department at South Dakota State University, lived up to its name for all involved. The American College Theatre Festival honored it with four national awards and nine national commendations. The cast of "Thrill Me" was honored with the Distinguished Performance Ensemble award. Actor Jacob Stevens was honored with the Distinguished Performance in a Play award. Jamison Gross won the award for Distinguished Musical Direction. Professor W. James Wood was honored for Distinguished Direction in a Play or Musical. The awards are based on how the students performed at a regional conference of the American College Theatre Festival in Rochester, Minnesota, Jan. 20.

South Dakota State University, which has built a name for itself in the building of lunar rovers and prototypes, has found success in one of NASA's longest-standing student challenges. An SDSU team consisting of five sophomores and one freshman finished second in the Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center near NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, April 10-11. "In our first year of participating in the NASA HERC competition, we got second place in the remote-control division," adviser and associate professor Todd Letcher said. First place went to the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

Friday the 13th brought nothing but good luck to students in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering at South Dakota State University. On the afternoon of March 13, just before spring break began, Todd Letcher, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was notified that all three of the SDSU teams he oversees had qualified for the finals of the Gateways to Blue Skies competition, which is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA. That means three of the eight finalists for the national contest are from South Dakota's land-grant institution.

Students in the South Dakota State University Department of Dairy and Food Science brought home significant honors in two recent national collegiate competitions.

A team of nine undergraduate students from South Dakota State University recently returned from Ribeirao Preto, Brazil, after competing in the prestigious 2025 IFAMA Global Student Case Competition, held in conjunction with the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association World Conference hosted by Harven Agribusiness School.

Innovative drone technology proposed by a quartet of South Dakota State University mechanical engineering students has lifted them to the finals of NASA contest. The team was one of eight schools chosen to compete in the finals of the NASA Gateways to Blue Skies competition at Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, May 20-21.

One of South Dakota State University's most historical cocurricular teams is preparing to make history at its first international tournament in March. Jackrabbits Forensics, SDSU's competitive speech and debate team, will travel to Dublin, Ireland, March 8-14 to compete in the International Forensics Association contest.

South Dakota State University's forensics team placed fourth in the Tier 2 Individual Events Team Sweepstakes and fifth in the Tier 2 Combined Debate and Individual Events Team Sweepstakes at the 2023 Pi Kappa Delta National Comprehensive Tournament in March at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.

Two South Dakota State University students in the landscape architecture program competed in an international competition in Istanbul, Turkey. Jake Pytleski and Miranda Peck represented the SDSU School of Design in the International Federation of Landscape Architects conference Sept. 4-6. Pytleski's team placed third in the conference competition.

Judges from NASA and other experts have selected a proposal from a group of South Dakota State University engineering students to compete with 14 other teams in the next stage of the $3.5 million Break the Ice Lunar Challenge. Most of the SDSU students are seniors entering their final semester.

The South Dakota State University 1/4 Scale Tractor Team was recently named champions of the 2022 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers International 1/4 Scale Tractor Student Design Competition. This year's team competed against 24 teams from across the United States and Canada.