Garver Opens NASA-WPI $1.5 Million Robot Competition
6.18.2012
NASA’s Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge, at which five engineering teams from across the country compete for an agency-funded prize of $1.5 million, kicks off at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., with NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver headlining the event’s opening ceremonies on Saturday, June 16.
The Sample Return Robot Challenge is to design and develop the next generation of autonomous robots to explore the landscapes of other worlds by locating, collecting and returning simulated "planetary samples." Competitors pursue whatever design approach they like, and are awarded the cash prizes by NASA only if they’re successful. Centennial Challenges, part of NASA’s Space Technology Program, stimulate private sector investment many times greater than the cash value of the prize by addressing a particular problem or technological need of national or international significance.
TRT: 00:31
Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator
Mason Peck, NASA Chief Technologist
HQ Contact: Dave Steitz/NASA HQ, 202-358-1730
For more info: http://www.nasa.gov/challenges
#SRRbot
Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator
"These technologies don’t build
themselves; these rockets don’t build themselves it’s all about people.
It is the people throughout the agency and our contractor community and our
academic partners who help us create the future." TRT: 00:15
› Play Now
Mason Peck, NASA Chief Technologist
"When we invest in technologies we take on these hard problems we inspire people to make advances in every area of technology. The direct investment we make in specific technologies can make small businesses’ successful products for the future but can also lead to things we don’t even know now." TRT- 00:16
› Play Now
