A Laurentian University team has won first place at NASA's Lunabotics Mining Competition.
The team, comprised of fourth-year mechanical engingeering students, was one of only two from Canada to participate in the contest, which challenged students to design and build a remote-controlled or autonomous excavator — a lunabot — that can collect and deposit a minimum of 10 kilograms of lunar simulant within 15 minutes.
The Laurentian-designed machine collected 237.4 kilograms of material in that time period — a world record.
The team beat out 40 other teams from around the world competing for the prize. The other Canadian team to take part hailed from McGill University.
The Laurentian team is comprised of Dr. Markus Timusk, assistant professor and mechanical engineering program coordinator, and fourth-year mechanical engineering students Stephane Chaisson, Drew Dewit, Greg Lakanan, Jeffrey Pagnutti, Myles Chisholm, Patrick Chartrand, Samuel Carriere and Jean-Sebastien Sonier.
The second annual competition, which is hosted by NASA and ran from May 23 to 28 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is designed to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
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