A rat wearing a backpack may sound unusual, but for this BYU capstone team, it became an opportunity to solve a real-world humanitarian problem.
Every year, thousands of people are trapped underneath rubble following earthquakes and building collapses.
Finding people in these hard-to-reach spaces can be a difficult task, which is why "Hero Rats" were created.
These East Savannah African Pouch Rats have unique abilities that make them perfect for the job.
"They are small, they are agile, they are able to access places that are not accessible for human or robot," Hebe Shen, a student who worked on the capstone, said.
A non-profit working in search and rescue has created a team of "Hero Rats" to assist in finding disaster victims trapped underneath rubble.
A BYU engineering capstone project has designed an improved backpack localization device for the rats to wear that helps find victims.
"The goal of this was to track the rats in a GPS-denied environment," Andrew Wilson, a professor advising the capstone, said.
"They have to apply technology to this natural ability so that they can then find the people after the rat has found the person," Wilson said.
The students worked on the capstone, putting in no less than ten hours each week, during fall and winter semester.
During the project, students went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City to observe East Savannah African Pouch Rats.
"We didn't understand the size of the rats," Wilson said.
"They're huge. They're like the size of my head," Shen said.
"When we saw the rats in-person it's not, the normal rat I guess you expect to see in America," Wilson said.
The project utilized machine-learning technology to understand the behavior of the rat.
"The idea is that maybe we could look at the behavior of the rat — maybe the rat is just sniffing around not actually moving — and we could use the data, and the machine learning could give us kind of some more upper-level like — 'what is the current state of the rat?' to help provide additional information," Wilson said.
For the students involved in "Hero Rats," the project feels like they're making a real difference.
"It just feels very meaningful," Shen said.
"This project just feels really real and it reminds me that I'm actually doing real engineering work to help people — and it also reminds me that engineering can be directly connected to human life," Shen said.
BYU plans on continuing to work with non-profits for upcoming capstone projects.