YSU shares ‘Cinderella' story of Moon Miners
The team scrapped one design and put together a simpler approach, which turned into a force. It called the performance a Cinderella story.
The Moon Miners shone because they built The Joker. The wheels move independently, like a skid steer. The bucket can pick up 99 pounds. It performed when it mattered most. The Collegiate Space Mining Competition (CoSMiC) called for building a robot capable of moving simulated lunar soil with the least amount of energy.'I think the efficiency of it was really what was the big highlight for us? You know, we didn't pick up the most regulate, but we did it so efficiently that we ended up getting that third-place spot,' said Jad Abdo, with YSU Moon Miners.
YSU's machine was the competition's lightest at 78 pounds. A 4K camera helped point the way. Moon soil is expensive, so the Moon Miners had their own special soil, practicing with the robot on the sand volleyball court. The Joker moved enough regulate to put YSU in third place, but the team was sweating to hold onto that position and receive a CoSMIC trophy.'And the next team that was up ran into a rock, and we're like we were sweating bullets. We're thinking that we were maybe gonna lose our third place,' said Christopher Neff, of Butler, Pa.
The team of six senior electrical engineering students and a sophomore was YSU's first to go to a NASA-sponsored competition. The robot outperformed several more experienced groups in moving lunar soil'This is amazing because given the time frame and also the resources they have. I mean, third place is wonderful,' said Dr. Frank Li, with the YSU School of Engineering. The Moon Miners are not stopping. They want to return to the competition. A whiteboard shows the team's goals and possible design to recreate success. It's an important way to pass on to the next group of lunar robot builders.'To be able to kind of get a great idea of documentation, our schematics, our code, everything that they might need to be successful next year,' said Anthony Orr, of Canfield.
The YSU team got third overall, and third place in autonomy and construction. They worked with a budget of just $5,500.
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