IRIS team takes first in robotic mining competition systems engineering paper

7/7/2016 Susan Mumm, Media Specialist

The IRIS team produced the best systems engineering paper, but the IRIS-6 encountered mechanical problems during the robotic mining competition.

Written by Susan Mumm, Media Specialist

 

IRIS-6 in competition
IRIS-6 in competition
IRIS-6 in competition

The Illinois Robotics in Space (IRIS) Team produced the best systems engineering paper in the 2016 NASA Robotic Mining Competition.

 

Each year, over 50 university-led teams design and build robots to dig in a basaltic regolith NASA uses to simulate soil from off-world explorations. NASA believes it possible in future missions to harvest from extraterrestrial environments the materials needed to support human life and provide spacecraft propellants. Concepts developed through the competition may prove helpful in designing mining tools for journeys to Mars and other locations in space.

The NASA competition is comprised of five events: on-site mining, the systems engineering paper, an outreach project report, a slide presentation and demonstration, and social media and public engagement. The Illinois team has a history of success in producing high quality systems engineering papers: the team won in 2015, as well, and placed in 2014 and 2012.

However, the team’s attempt at mining during the May competition failed when its IRIS-6 robot encountered mechanical problems. "The drive system for IRIS-6 used a two tread system consisting of a chain drive with two sprockets: one sprocket attached to the motor's gearbox and one attached to a wheel axle,” said team leader Cassandra Dickey. “We initially ran into trouble when the sprockets on the axles gave out. During our final competition run, after replacing the axle sprockets, our gearbox sprockets also gave out. Since our frame was constructed later than we had planned, we didn’t have much time for testing, which should have mitigated the issue.”

 

IRIS-6
IRIS-6
IRIS-6

The team gained valuable lessons from the experience. “We need to do better on time management, and we know now that nylon sprockets are not a good idea,” Dickey said.

 

The team members may gain time by modifying IRIS-6’s design for the 2017 competition. “I think IRIS-6 had a good design, we just needed to test more,” Dickey said. “I think we should strive to focus on getting this robot fully functional and make improvements based on testing before attempting to design a new robot. What we do this coming year will depend on the team and what we decide.”

In addition to Dickey, IRIS members who contributed to the 2016 project were:

  • Kaushik Ponnapalli
  • Deepa Kote
  • Branden Kirchner
  • Gooyoung Jung
  • Byron Hopps
  • Andres Rodriguez Reina
  • Christina Choi
  • Daniel Woodall
  • Jacob Drewniak
  • Karman Joshi
  • Malhar Jere
  • Dean Romanchek
  • Adana Pappas
  • Alen Golpashin
  • Berkan Bolkan
  • Brandon Powers
  • Brandon Woods
  • Brooke Polak
  • Da-Yae Frail
  • Dingkun Guo
  • DongHoon Kang
  • Grant Brucker
  • Jean Kwak
  • Jeffrey Jun
  • Jiby Mamen
  • Joe Stelter
  • Jordan Konick
  • Liam Power
  • Lian Lu
  • Maximilian Sieb
  • Michael Kopera
  • Nathan Havens
  • Sang A Lee
  • Tianyang Zheng
  • Ying Chen
  • Zhendong Yang
  • Faculty advisor Brian Woodard

 
 


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This story was published July 7, 2016.