Media Release
July 15, 2004
Great minds put robots on a mission to Mars
Their mission is to ensure a specimen collecting robot safely alights from the Mars landing module, gathers just the right amount and type of specimen material from the red planet, and then finds its way back to the “mother ship” before blasting off to return to earth.
It is a mission that has been assigned to 36 International Space University students as part of its Summer Session Program, and according to the academic leaders for the teams – it has been no mean feat.
The students have had four days to work with Lego “Mind Storm” kits and develop their own computer programming to field both the hardware and software for the mission. And at 7.30 pm on Thursday July 15 they will compete to see which robot and team have been most successful. The event is open to the public and will be held on the main stage at UniSA’s Brookman Hall (City East Campus crn North Tce and Frome Rd).
Academic team leaders for the competition, Dr Kazuya Yoshida, Professor at the Space Robotics Lab, Tohoku University, Japan; and Arthur Prevo, from the École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada say despite the use of Lego components for the robots, the work is anything but child’s play.
“In purely academic terms the task set is as complicated if not a little more difficult than what was required of the recent real life Mars exploration mission,” Prevo says.
“These robots will have to manoeuvre around obstacles, ‘know’ which items need to be collected as samples and then return to the rocket that is set to take them home.
“It is a complex mixture of functional hardware design with sophisticated software programming that helps the robots bring intelligence to the task.
“Once they push the start button the robots must be able to function on their own – there is no remote control function here – it is a complex set of programming parameters that must be set out and written by the students to make sure their robots capture the right materials and get back to their return rocket without damage.”
This public event is part of the International Space University (ISU) program being run in Adelaide, hosted by the three South Australian universities – UniSA, Adelaide and Flinders.
Families are particularly welcome at this exciting robotics competition.
Media contact
- Nicole Cremer, Executive Officer mobile 0439 844 834
- Michael Davis, Program Organising Committee Chair mobile 0419 170 251
- Morla Milne, ISU Adelaide Office Media Relations office (08) 8302 1188
- David Ellis, Media Officer, University of Adelaide office (08) 8303 3173 mobile 0414 559 773
- Michèle Nardelli, Manager News and Media, UniSA office (08) 8302 0966 mobile 0418 823 673