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A team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute has won the $500,000 grand prize from a NASA lunar excavation robotics contest in California.
WPI undergraduate robotics engineering major Paul Ventimiglia’s team, Paul’s Robotics, beat 22 other teams at the 2009 Regolith (moondust) Excavation Challenge at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., last week.
The team designed, built and programmed a robot, which it named “Moonraker 2.0.” The team comprised WPI computer science professor Mike Ciaraldi, WPI manager of robotics initiatives Colleen Shaver, WPI graduates Brian Loveland and Jennifer Flynn, and Miami-based software developer Marc DeVidts — the team’s only non-WPI-affiliated member.
This is the third year of the contest, started by NASA to find ideas for excavation techniques that do not require excessively heavy machines or large amounts of power, in anticipation of moon missions involving construction projects.
The robots had to navigate around a moon-like surface, collect dust and deliver it to a collection bin. To qualify for a prize, a robot had to dig up and dump at least 330 pounds of dust in 30 minutes. Paul’s Robotics robot lifted and dumped 967 pounds of dust. The two runners-up excavated 595 and 580 pounds, respectively.
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