NASA will be conducting its Fifth Annual Robotic Mining Competition on May 23 at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. The NYU Poly Lunabotics team, Atlas, which has been an active participant in the competition for the past five years, will be taking part again. The objective: to design and build a robot that can traverse simulated Martian terrain, excavate simulated regolith (a layer of loose, heterogeneous material covering solid rock) and deposit as much of it as possible into a collector bin within 10 minutes. The robot will be controlled remotely.
The NYU Poly Lunabotics team consists of students from the different engineering disciplines who work together every year to build a large semiautonomous rover that can mine lunar soil. The seven-member team started work on this project earlier this year.
The captain of the team is Eason Smith, a sophomore majoring in computer science and electrical engineering. Nicholas Reid, a sophomore majoring in computer science and physics, is the software leader of the team and, he noted, software is the key to the whole project— that is, the operation of the robot.
Many factors play a role in the outcome of this year's competition. Various robot designs, construction techniques and operating methods will be taken into consideration. These include dust tolerance, mobility, remote communication with the robot, vehicle mass, and the energy required to operate the device.
The winning team will receive, in addition to a trophy, an award certificate for each member, and a $5,000 team scholarship.
The NYU Poly team members, in addition to Smith and Reid, are Devon Simmons, Samuel Huang, Pawel Sawicki, Kevin Veerasammy, and Elizabeth Syso.
