UA robotics team finishes second in lunar mining competition
Members of the 2015 UA NASA Robotics team at the sixth annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition held at Kennedy Space Center in May.
The results are in, and the NASA Robotics Team finished second overall at the sixth annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition held at Kennedy Space Center in May.
The team of College of Engineering students designed and constructed a robot to mine, transport and deposit regolith (sand) in a simulated Mars environment. NASA expects to benefit from the competition by encouraging university students to develop innovative excavation concepts that it might be able to apply to excavation devices or payloads.
The University of Akron’s 2015 NASA Robotics team with robot CHRISTEE at the sixth annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition held at Kennedy Space Center in May .
“This is an outstanding program and you are to be lauded for your efforts,” commented one of the judges about the UA team. “It is obvious this is a very established team that built upon previous designs and improved them with the benefit of the systems engineering process.”
Team members are Zachary Kilburn, Todd Locker, Fabian Ardeljan, Dana Cressman, Reed Jacobsen, Igor Vinograd, Ryan Weir, Jack Wolfe III, Kaitlin Erdman, Claire Langenderfer, John Stefan, Kelly O'Neill and Andrew Soltisz.
The team’s faculty advisor is Dr. Seungdeog Choi, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with support from Max Fightmaster, an ECE technologist.
In addition to placing second overall, the team received second place in the team spirit category.
Media contacts: Sarah Steidl, 330-471-8142 or steidl@uakron.edu , or Denise Henry, 330-972-6477 or henryd@uakron.edu.