NASA Prizes for Builder and Flyer Robots

FleaPlus writes "NASA has recently announced a couple more X-Prize-style Centennial Challenges. The first is a Telerobotic Construction Challenge, for using a team of robots to assemble structures from building blocks with minimal human intervention. The second is an Planetary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Challenge, to create a robot which can fly a path using visual navigation and hit ground targets with a probe (no GPS allowed). Rules are still being finalized, with the contests scheduled for 2007. Both prizes are for $250,000, the max Congress is allowing NASA to offer."

Comments

Fixed prize limit?

[Bombula]

$250k is a not a whole lot of money. I'm not sure how many outfits would be able to get something out of the design stages without more money than that, so this prize would most likely not even cover costs.

That may not be the point, but it would sure be nice to at least have the development costs for projects like this covered by prize money.

Re:Fixed prize limit?

[massivefoot]

I think the unmanned aerial vehicle might be doable for that cost. I mean, the hard bit is the AI. Other than that you've just got a model aeroplane being controlled internally rather than be someone on the ground with a transmitter.

Of course you need to know how far it has to fly etc, but IMO it can't cost over £10k to build the airframe. The programme to fly it wouldn't be too hard either, the only hard part is that it needs to know where it is and what orientation it's in . Yhe latter is trivial - use a giro like any other aircraft would. The former could probably be done by taking either a stereo image from two cameras mounted on the wing tips, or useing some sort of downward looking radar, to create a 3D picture of the local terrain, which could then be matched to a map held in memory and a "best-fit" obtained.

Re:Fixed prize limit?

[Somatic]

Four words: Chief Knock-a-Homer.

Matching funds?

[Bombula]

Since the $250k limit is imposed by congress, maybe matching funds could be sought from private sponsors. Surely some of the big contractors like Boeing and those sorts of guys would be willing to put up some prize money if they might end up getting the big contracts to develop and build the real things?

Should be interesting

[inflex]

While the prize money isn't a lot, it might actually have an interesting effect in bringing about the less well funded but no less ingenious developers into the foray while the typical high ranking developers/companies pay less attention. It's certainly something I'd be interested in participating in (the aerial navigation).

Hmm...

[St0rmwarden]

I wonder if GTX Global will be entering anything with their "true AI" onboard...

Already something like the second one:

[OverlordQ]

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International holds an annual competition named the International Aerial Robotics Competition. In order to win, a team's vehicle must complete these four objectives autonomously, without human intervention:

        * Fly three kilometers along a specified path of GPS waypoints.
        * Search a target area for a marked building; identify the openings and their centers.
        * Enter the building and document specific aspects within its interior.
        * Complete the previous three goals consecutively in less than 15 minutes.

Yes it's GPS vs Visual, but roughly similar

I am a high school student

[PlayfullyClever]

I am a high school student, so I believe I am qualified to answer you.

First, be forwarned. I don't mean to sound cynical, but there is not a whole lot that has to do with science and technology that would excite most students. Even if it does, a lot of people are too scared of being called a "nerd" or a "geek" and thereby having their social status for the rest of the four years ruined to show that excitement.

There are, however, some. I don't think that a robotics competition is a good idea, however. I don't know about most schools, but at mine there are not a lot of people interested in robotics. Besides, it would take a lot of work, and a lot of the most brilliant people are inherently lazy.

I think the programming fair was a great idea, however. Every time I write a program to do the simplest thing on my TI-83+ graphing calculator (such as convert celsius to fahrenheit for instance) people gape at me with awe and amazement and ask, how did you DO that? This includes jocks, socialites, and various other groups of people who would normally not be caught dead showing an interest in the "nerdy" fields of computers or technology.

If you put on a programming fair, you are not going to be able to teach anyone computer programming in a day, but you will spark their interest. Give away a few CDs with C tutorials on them or something, and maybe, just maybe, a few kids will try them out.

Also, expect the bit-head population to turn out in force at your fair. You can even put some of them to good use, having them help the newbies who have no idea what's going on.

In conclusion, programming fair=good, robotics competition=bad.

Re:250K?!?!?!

[ichigo 2.0]

According to Babelfish:
It was once sweet rabbit. The rabbit had a large carrot. It was a special carrot: if you ate a piece of it, then she regenerated within fewer minutes again. The rabbit hid it in its earth hole. But a beautiful daily, when the rabbit came back to its hole, was it away. The rabbit frightened and began a hole to dig. It dug and dug to it on a large cave pushed. The carrot is because of the other end of the cave. But there was also an orange, petrified cow with wings.


Orange petrified cow with wings, indeed. :)