Meet the Teams: Team RIVIR

It’s not that Shern Peters was an overly rambunctious child, but like all kids he had his moments. Perhaps what differentiated Shern from other youngsters was his reaction to punishment. When his mom disciplined him for his transgressions, he “loved it…My mom would make me write book reports about things in the encyclopedia. Even when I watched TV, my favorite show was “Mr. Wizard's World,”(a Saturday morning Nickelodeon show that illuminated the science behind ordinary things).  ‘So, I was learning all the time. I just loved learning. In fact, I learned how to make a parachute, which was the first science experiment I ever conducted.”

Those experiences, plus his affinity for “Transformers” and his interactive “Casey the Robot” toy, also taught the now 42-year-old Houston resident what is and is not possible. And to Shern, building an emergency response flyer for the GoAERO challenge is not only possible but 100% doable. In fact, he is captain of Team RIVIR in the global competition.

“As a child, I would always dream of flying, and being in a flying car,” Shern recalls. “I even made a set of cardboard wings and jumped off my roof. For a split second, even while I was in free fall, I felt like I was flying. So, I seemed to always know that I was going to invent something that would fly.”

This “invention” – his GoAERO emergency response flyer – first began to take shape in his imagination while a college student. Shern’s academic journey took him first to Community College of Allegheny County (PA), then to Lincoln University, the nation’s first degree-granting Historically Black College and University, and finally to Florida Institute of Technology, from which he earned his bachelor’s degree in both Mechanical and Electrical Engineering for a path to Robotics Engineering. His vision became solidified on Sept. 11, 2001, when he and countless other students watched people stuck on the top floors of the World Trade Center.

“I saw people jumping out of windows to try and survive. They couldn’t escape,” Shern vividly recalls. “That’s when the idea for my aircraft was fully realized. Such an aircraft could have saved some of those people on 9/11. Then I thought about how it could help in many other situations like emergencies, as well as defense and even leisure. From then on, my focus was solely on developing my engineering skills so I could build such an aircraft.”

He started acquiring these skills while working on a design project involving a flying submarine at Florida Tech. He knew a lot about mechanics – “I was always fixing things for my family and friends” – while his project mates taught him about aircraft engineering. “It was a really cool project. I knew if I could build that, I knew I could also build a flying car, specifically my emergency response flyer.”

Still, he had to put his aspirations on hold to address the realities of life. “I had to make money to live,” Shern explains, noting that he went to Houston, TX to work in research and development in the oil field industry for the next several decades. He went on to earn eight patents for the “blow-out” prevention tools for oil rigs that he designed. He also developed a keener understanding about materials, extreme forces and pressures, electronics, robotics, and other useful skills that would eventually come in handy for building his GoAERO vehicle.

Even while working on the oil rigs – and even when trying to sell the idea of storm rooms for people in Florida – the pull of building an emergency response flyer always beckoned at the forefront of his life goals.

“I guess it has to do with my ‘HERO Complex’,” Shern says. “I want to save people from disasters. And that’s ok.”

He readily gives credit to GoAERO for helping him actualize his humanitarian instincts. “I’ve had my idea since 2004, but it always seemed as if there was no industry support to help bring it to fruition. Plus, I knew the best way we could truly demonstrate the capabilities of our design, and to show how we're better than others, was to compete in a head-to-head competition. Then GoAERO happened and now we can demonstrate our tech.”

Shern maintains that Team RIVIR's aircraft design will make all the difference, citing such factors as Ducted Distributed Electric Propulsion, hybrid power generation, and lightweight engineering. "These innovations will help us perform better than the competition; that's our straight-forward strategy."

Of course, like all GoAERO teams, RIVIR has its challenges, with fundraising being the biggest obstacle. Shern notes the team has been able to raise enough money to build its first full-scale flyable prototype. But “we can only afford components and utilities; we haven't been able to pay our engineering team. Our strategy is to build the working prototype and prove ourselves, and our tech, and that will attract larger funders to support our development further.”

And even if his team doesn’t win, he stresses that just providing an aircraft that can get to areas where helicopters can’t go will totally change what emergency services can do.

“Many emergency service agencies are limited by budget on how many aircraft they can purchase and put into service,” says Shern, whose favorite song, the theme from the 1972 action classic film “Super Fly,” aptly sums up his GoAERO vision. “By providing a more cost-effective aircraft that can do more than a helicopter will disrupt the whole aviation industry.”