Live in, or even near, Massachusetts? Then I've got weekend plans for you! The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) landed the prestigious role of being the first university to host a NASA Centennial Challenge and they decided to celebrate with a family-friendly festival of robotics, Touch Tomorrow, on Saturday, June 16th. I won't be attending due to the fact that there's a 6-hour flight between me and WPI, but as any good STEM nerd I feel it is my duty to swoon over random events of the robotic kind.
Let's start with the big picture, NASA Centennial Challenges. These are NASA competitions open to the general public (though hardly accessible to anyone without a good scientific background and serious genius tendencies). There's been between one and six competitions every year since 2006, with each competition featuring a different mission and offering a prize purse of anywhere between $200,000 and $2,000,000.
The NASA Centennial Challenge hosted at WPI this weekend is the Sample Return Robot Challenge. The name is pretty self-explanatory, in this challenge each team must build an autonomous robot that will find, collect, and return rock samples. The challenge will consist of two levels. On the first level held on Saturday, June 16th (weather permitting), each robot has 15 minutes to get one pre-cached sample. If a robot completes level 1 successfully, its team will be invited to participate in level 2 on Sunday, June 17th (weather permitting). In level 2, the robot will have two hours to get one pre-cached sample and nine distributed samples.
There's an extra level of difficulty, however, which is the long list of disallowed technology. The innovative part of this challenge is that they want to develop robots that can operate on planets (or moons) other than Earth and must therefore not rely on Earth-based physics and technology. This, for example, includes fan-cooled motors, GPS, sound-based sensors, and magnetic sensors. All that combined makes for pretty difficult geolocating. As Jascha Little of team "Survey" shared on their NASA Centennial Challenge team profile, "finding samples in such a large area with no absolute navigation (like GPS) is really tough."
Spectators will not be able to observe the competition field directly, but live footage will be broadcasted real time all over campus. For both levels/days, each team will compete one at a time starting at 11am, meaning you as a spectator will be able to catch part of the action throughout the day. While Sunday is the big event for the robots, you won't want to miss the Touch Tomorrow festival on Saturday. Touch Tomorrow will feature a huge choice of fantastic activities about science, technology, and robots, from Q&A sessions with NASA astronauts to science experiments to student projects and everything in between. While the challenge itself is weather dependent, the festival is rain or shine so don't let the weather stop you.
I got in contact with Ken Stafford, associated director of WPI's robotics engineering program, to ask more questions about the challenge, WPI, and the future of robotics!
GeekMom: How did WPI come to host the NASA Centennial Challenge? Did you reach out to NASA?
Stafford: My associate, Colleen Shaver (Assistant Director, Robotics Resource Center) came to me in Fall on 2010, shortly after NASA announced the challenge, and suggested that we put in a bid to host the event. We had shared interest in these Centennial Challenges; Colleen was part of a 2-year campaign that produced MoonRaker, the winning NASA Regolith Excavation Robot of 2009; I arranged the lab space for this robot and closely followed its progress (one of my academic advisees was the organizer of the effort). I thought it was a great idea and solicited internal and external support while Colleen drafted the proposal.
GeekMom: Have WPI college students been able to participate in the challenge?
Stafford: Our agreement as an "allied partner" with NASA prohibits any WPI-affiliated student, faculty, or staff from competing for the prize money. We certainly do have students, however, that will be very active in helping us run the event.
GeekMom: The NASA Sample Return Robot challenge was designed by WPI, how did you decide what the challenge would consist of?
Stafford: We assembled a team of experts from several universities and after reviewing the limited NASA description began drafting a competition concept. Our focus was on the primary goals of navigation, searching, and sample recognition in an extraterrestrial environment; we wanted to have a significant challenge but not unduly test proven technologies associated with such things as robot mobility and grasper technologies. Our corporate experience in participating, planning, and running major robotic tournaments provided us with especially good insights on what competitors needed while keeping NASA's goals in view. As we progressed in the design phase we kept frequent contact with our NASA colleagues to assure that we stayed on track.
GeekMom: WPI was the first university in the nation to offer a major in Robotics Engineering (BS, MS, and PhD). What's the difference between robotics engineering and mechanical engineering?
Stafford: Robotics engineering is fundamentally interdisciplinary. While mechanical engineering covers broad areas including such topics as kinematics, power application, work and energy, forces and stresses… all essential for robotics, robotics engineers also need similar fundamental backgrounds in Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as Computer Science. We consider these three separate disciplines equally important. As robots need sensors (ECE), intelligence (CS), and actuators (ME) assembled in a thoughtful manner to be complete; our graduates similarly require these three distinct competencies.
GeekMom: What can students in robotics engineering expect to do as a job after graduation? Why is it a good choice as a major?
Stafford: Our graduates have been remarkably successful in finding rewarding opportunities upon graduation. The statistics are not in for this year's graduates but anecdotally, we see them being hired not only in positions that are described as robotics engineers (an increasingly offered position) but also in highly sought-after systems engineering positions. Additionally many are choosing to continue on to higher robotics engineering degrees.
Within New England particularly, the growth in robotics-associated industries is far outpacing more conventional disciplines. Students who receive this degree are destined to be on this leading edge of this entrepreneurial bow wave. Besides, robots and robotic engineering is great fun!
GeekMom: Aside from space exploration and military usage, what are robots used for?
Stafford: Wow, the easier question might be where AREN'T they being used. Really, we see them becoming increasingly important (and desired) in just about any field that you imagine. Our recent undergraduate projects have included aquatic robots that can be used for environmental surveys, tree-climbing robots to inspect trees for invasive insects, robotic gloves to provide effective physical therapy for rehabilitation, MRI-compatible medical robots to allow realtime needle placement and therapies, telepresence robots for use as tour guides, tool manipulator robots to assist other manufacturing robots, a robotic farming system to optimize crop production, flying robots for search and rescue and disaster damage assessment…etc, etc. Yes, they are being used for security/military and space exploration, but also in applications associated with health/medical professions, consumer needs, industry/manufacturing, and entertainment.
GeekMom: How do you think robotics will shape our near future, in the next 5 to 10 years? Will consumers ever get anything cooler than a Roomba?
Stafford: Great question, I often pose a similar question to audiences viewing our robot demonstrations. Most folks will not claim to have a robot—but they simply do not recognize that they are already here. Virtually every car built in the last decade was not only built largely by robots but actually contain major robotic elements. When a driver steps on the brake, the "brake robot" (commonly call antilock braking system) determines what the appropriate action is. When you set your clothes dryer for a preferred level of "dryness" the "laundry robot" make the decisions on temperature and time based upon sensors and feedback. Integration of robots such as these are making our lives safer and, generally, less tasking. So, are these "cool"? Maybe not so much. What I really see in the next decade are two situations: 1) increasing robotic integration and involvement with everything from automobiles to home appliances (these are probably cool only to us robotics engineers!) and 2) some early adopters of home companion robots that may function to provide security, assist in routine tasks such as lawn-mowing, and perhaps even assist in elder/child care. So, yeah, definitely cooler than a Roomba (which is way cool!).
Thank you so much, Ken!
For kids seeking more robot fun this summer, WPI does also offer a variety of summer programs for kids: Junior Robotics Challenge for grades 4-8, Advanced Robotics summer camp for grades 6-8, Launch 2012 for high school freshmans and sophomores, and Frontiers II for high school juniors and seniors.
If you are, like yours truly, not able to attend the festival, the challenge's video feed is available online.
