$1.36M NASA robot competition finals come to Worcester

NASA WPI will host the final round in this five-year competition. Pictured is the competition during the 2015 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge at WPI.

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By Sam Bonacci

The culmination of a five year long, $1.36 million robot competition will end in one final meeting this September at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

The Worcester institution will serve as the final testing grounds for robots in NASA's Sample Return Robot Challenge. The top seven teams will compete for the $1.36 million prize on the campus from Sept. 4-6. Since the competition began in 2012, only seven teams have proven the competence of their robots to the point where they are allowed to competed in this final round.

The competing teams are:

Team Al - Toronto, Canada
Alabama Astrobotics - Tuscaloosa, Alabama
MAXed Out - Santa Clara, California
Mind & Iron - Seattle, Washington
Sirius - South Hadley, Massachusetts
Survey - Los Angeles
West Virginia University Mountaineers - Morgantown, West Virginia

In this final round of the challenge, teams have up to two hours each to locate as many as 10 unknown samples that vary in size, shape, location and difficulty. The samples are classified as easy, intermediate and hard and are assigned corresponding point values. One team could win the entire prize purse, or multiple teams could share a percentage of the prize.

The three-day event will conclude with an awards ceremony on Sept. 6.