2013 Rasc-al Robo-ops Competition Sponsorship

Students from the Florida A&M University and Florida State University are competing in the RASC-AL ROBO-OPS competition. To find out more about the robot and the competition take a look at the video below as well as information from one of the students who brought this rover to life.

"We are a team of six engineering students from the Florida A&M University and Florida State University who are competing in the RASC-AL ROBO-OPS competition. This competition is held in June at the Johnson Space Center rock yard in Houston, Texas. The objective is to develop a rover that will traverse the rock yard and pick up colored rocks for the hour-long competition. The rover will be controlled from our home university via the Verizon 4g network.

Our rover design is the first legged robot to compete in this competition and should give us an advantage in traversing rough terrain. In the development of the sample extraction module for this rover, we designed to incorporate the versatility of the legs. Our design utilizes a simple planar arm to speed up extraction times and when necessary, uses the legs to raise and lower the arm. Since we have limited mobility with the vertical movement of the arm, we elected to use a high force linear actuator that would help us move undesired rocks out of our way to isolate the sample we wish to extract. This is why we went with the 16’’ 200lbf linear actuator from Progressive Automations. Our competition starts on June 4th and will be televised on NASA’s website and TV channel for those wishing to watch. We would like to thank Progressive Automations for their generous sponsorship and quality product!"

-Student from Florida A&M University