Anyone in the DC area this Friday and Saturday (April 5-6) should stop by the Smithsonian National Air & Space museum for their National Robotics Week event.
Robots from WPI will be on display both Friday and Saturday and we are incredibly honored to have been invited. Our display will include:
- Moonraker, winner of the 2009 NASA Lunar Regolith Excavation Centennial Challenge. The $500,000 first prize winning robot was created by WPI Students and Alum, including mentors of FRC190. The robot had to operate under delayed human control, simulating operation on the Moon, for 30 minutes to collect as much lunar regolith as possible above the 150kg minimum. Moonraker successfully collected close to 500kg of regolith, with the next closest competitor collecting under 300kg.
- Oryx 2.0, winner of the 2012 NASA/NIA RASC-AL Robo-Ops competition. The WPI team was selected as one of the 10 teams allowed to compete in the rock yard at NASA in Texas, while the robot was controlled from WPI in Worcester, MA. The robot was created by WPI students as part of their senior project, and almost all were FIRST alums. This was a repeat victory for WPI, as the team also won the inaugural event in 2011.
There will be other robots on display from NASA, DARPA, and Infamous Robotics. To learn more about this National Robotics Week event, go to: http://airandspace.si.edu/events/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=6007