Registration Open for NASA’s 2015 Sample Return Robot Challenge

A team robot approaches a sample in the 2014 challenge. Photo courtesy NASA.

by Scott Kesselman



Registration is open for the fourth annual Sample Return Robot Challenge, NASA’s autonomous robot competition, which will take place 8-13 June, 2015 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. 



The event, which will have a $1.5 million prize purse, asks teams to demonstrate a robot that can locate and collect geologic samples from varied terrain and distance autonomously. The challenge consists of two levels of increasing difficultly.



In 2012, no team was able to complete the first round objective, but in 2013 and 2014, Team Survey of Los Angeles and the West Virginia Mountaineers, respectively, were awarded $5,000 each for the successful completion of level one.  Each may begin at level two in the 2015 competition if they choose.



Entry diversity and depth is growing each year, according to a NASA press release, with the 2014 competition seeing a high school team compete among teams representing universities, small businesses, families and colleagues.  



“The teams’ robots are growing more sophisticated each year,” says Sam Ortega, NASA’s Centennial Challenges program manager. “It’s exciting to watch them overcome the significant obstacles of this challenge and make giant leaps toward developing a new technology.”