TAMIU DustyTRON Robotics Team Again Places Nationally at NASA Mining Competition
The Texas A&M International University DustyTRON Robotics Team took 16th place at the Seventh NASA Robotic Mining Competition held May 16 - 20, 2016 in Kennedy Space Center, FL.
The team competed against 45 other university teams. They were the only Texas team competing.
Earlier this month, the DustySWARM Team celebrated two wins at the first-ever NASA Swarmathon also at the Kennedy Space Center, FL. The TAMIU team placed third overall in the virtual competition and first place in the outreach paper category, visual competition.
The 7th Annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition (RMC) is set up for college students to design and build a mining robot that can travel over a simulated Martian surface, excavate regolith or Mars dirt and deposit as much of it as possible into a bin, all within 10 minutes.
Team members may control their bots remotely from a trailer where their only line of sight is via a computer screen, or completely autonomously, with their programming skills put to the test as their robot handles the mission on its own. Essentially, NASA is crowdsourcing ideas from inventive college students who want to be part of NASA’s journey to Mars.
To see total scores, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rmc2016_totalscores.pdf
For more information, contact Dr. Tariq H. Tashtoush, TAMIU assistant professor of Engineering, at 956.326.2600 or visit offices in the TAMIU Lamar Bruni Vergara Science Center and Planetarium, room 323.
Office hours are from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday – Friday.
Additional information is also available at www.tamiu.edu and https://www.facebook.com/TAMIUDustyTRON/
The TAMIU DustyTRON team impressed the NASA Competition judges, placing 16th.