When Bryson Love arrived at South Dakota State University, he didn’t plan to sit on the sidelines. Even before classes began he was hunting for NASA projects, asking professors how he could help and showing up to meetings with ideas. That curiosity didn’t fade—it rippled outward, turning a freshman’s enthusiasm into a campus-wide habit of hands-on aerospace work.
By September he had joined a student design team. Less than a year later he was in Cocoa Beach, Florida, watching his team’s prototype reach the finals of a national competition. What started as one student’s initiative quickly became a blueprint for bringing underclassmen into meaningful, technical roles earlier in their college careers.
Bryson’s impact wasn’t just technical. Faculty mentors handled the engineering guidance; Bryson built the social infrastructure. He organized onboarding sessions for competition teams, posted clear meeting schedules, and personally mentored new members through those awkward first weeks. As a result, newcomers found it easier to plug into projects and teams kept moving forward instead of stalling between academic years.
Those changes showed up in measurable ways. Advisors reported faster ramp-up times, steadier progress on prototypes and higher retention on teams. Projects benefited from clearer handoffs between cohorts. In short, earlier, practical exposure helped students develop skills faster and stay engaged—a pattern that experiential-learning research has long suggested, now visible on the ground at SDSU.
The program is ready to be scaled. Plans are now in motion to document Bryson’s mentorship framework and adapt it across departments. Tracking outcomes—skills acquired, internships landed, and project deliverables completed—will reveal whether this student-led, faculty-supported pipeline can be reproduced elsewhere.
Bryson’s outreach also broadened SDSU’s competitive reach. Teams that had once been made up mainly of seniors are now sustained by multi-year continuity, creating a deeper talent pipeline. Todd Letcher, associate professor and coordinator for NASA projects at the Lohr College of Engineering, credits Bryson with recruiting 15–20 committed students into several initiatives.
That continuity paid off on the national stage. During the 2025–26 season SDSU fielded multiple teams in contests such as RASC-AL (Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts–Academic Linkage), Gateways to Blue Skies, the Human Exploration Rover Challenge and the Human Lander Challenge. One freshman-led group—born from Bryson’s outreach—was among 14 teams nationwide selected for RASC-AL and advanced to the finals with a working prototype.
Competitions like these teach more than engineering. Students practice project management, rapid prototyping, systems integration and real-world testing. They produce calibrated hardware and publishable test data; they meet judges and sponsors who can open doors to internships and funded projects. For students, the true prize is a portfolio of tangible achievements: evidence that they can solve messy, high-stakes problems under pressure. For SDSU, growing participation signals a stronger commitment to linking classroom learning with the unpredictable realities of engineering practice.