Dig this — two Seattle-area students were semifinalists in a national contest run by NASA in which kids in grades K-12 were tasked with designing a robot that could scoop up and transport lunar soil.
The Lunabotics Junior Contest winners were named at the end of March and among 20 kids in the final pack were Ke “Max” Jiang of Bellevue, Wash., and Mason Lysaght of Snohomish. The contest attracted approximately 2,300 design submissions.
The entrants were tasked with making a drawing of their robot’s design, either as an original work of art, 3D model, diagram or photograph of a prototype. A written summary of the machine’s design was also required.
NASA based the contest around its ambition to return to the Moon and future needs related to digging and moving lunar soil, or regolith, from one area of the lunar South Pole to a holding container near a planned Artemis Moon base. The planned robots — no bigger than 3.5 feet x 2 feet x 2 feet, had to address concerns including how the robots would scoop and dig regolith; how much dirt would be transported on each trip; and how the machines would deal with lunar dust clinging to everything.
Lunar regolith will be used for multiple purposes, according to NASA, such as building a Moon base using lunar concrete; harvesting water that also can be used for rocket fuel; and extracting possible metals or minerals.
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