Case Western Reserve University’s undergraduate Robotics Club competed at NASA’s annual robotic mining competition at NASA Kennedy Space Center in May for the third year in a row, finishing with their team best at the competition. The competition consists of mining simulated Mars dust.
Calin Solomon, a fifth-year engineering student, led the team, with help from adviser Richard Bachmann, an adjunct instructor of mechanical engineering. The team is composed of undergraduate students in electrical, mechanical, aerospace, biomedical engineering and computer science.
At the competition, the team dug and dumped simulated martian regolith into the collection bin for the first time, collecting about 3 kilos.
The team also received the Regolith Mechanics Innovation Award, an award presented to the team with a mechanical design that showed innovation in dealing with the tricky martian regolith.