Student Engineers Excel During 2011 NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition

The eight-member team of mechanical engineering students from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario won NASA's second annual Lunabotics Mining Competition. Their lunabot outperformed competitors from 35 other universities around the world, collecting 237.4 kilograms of lunar regolith simulant in 15 minutes. The University of North Dakota came in second, collecting 172.2 kilograms, followed by West Virginia University in third with 106.4 kilograms. These numbers are especially impressive given the fact that last year's winner collected just over 25 kilograms of the synthetic lunar material. In the spirit of continuous improvement and innovation, this year's teams studied last year's robots and made improvements to their designs based on the lessons learned by the teams that competed last year. This year was the first time the competition was open to international teams. Teams came from India, Chile, Colombia, Canada and the United States to compete.

Markus Timusk, the faculty advisor for the Laurentian team, told the Canadian Broadcasting Centre that the win is "an especially sweet victory" because the students on the team will be among the first graduates from Laurentian University's mechanical engineering program, which was created just four years ago. The team drove thirty hours in an RV to compete - teams had to self-fund their robots and travel through fundraising or sponsorships - and left with a $5,000 cash prize and VIP access to watch the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis in July.

Speaking to students at the competition's opening ceremony, Caterpillar Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Tana Utley said that the challenges students were facing in this competition - developing and testing new technologies within time and monetary constraints - were similar to challenges we face in industry. Although Lunabotics is an engineering competition at its core, the teams are also required to reach out to younger students and promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This combination of engineering and outreach makes Lunabotics a great match for Caterpillar sponsorship.