{"id":1232,"date":"2026-05-20T20:06:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2026-05-20T20:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:06:57","slug":"how-to-pile-dirt-on-the-moon-robotics-teams-tackle-nasa-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=1232","title":{"rendered":"How to pile dirt on the moon? Robotics teams tackle NASA challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER \u2014 In their anxious quest to win a NASA competition to build the biggest mound of dirt on the moon, one robotics team here suddenly lost a wheel. Now \u2014 maybe you guessed \u2014 they\u2019re reinventing it.<\/p>

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So it went for the team from the University of Virginia, which came into the three-day final this week as the top contender for the annual Lunabotics Challenge. The student-run Mechatronics and Robotics Society, or MARS, had excelled in the preliminary rounds at the Florida Space Institute\u2019s Exolith Lab near the University of Central Florida.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday,\u00a0their rover Bruno was performing as expected until about a third of the way through a 30-minute run.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Bruno became wedged in a crater.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our wheels completely broke off of the robot,\u201d said Nayeon Son, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major. \u201cWhat happened was the center of the wheel stuck onto the robot and the rest of the wheel pulled apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, the 3D-printed wheel fell completely free, and the team\u2019s robot was able to limp away on the three remaining wheels. Team members then used the rounded barrel structures on Bruno to scoop the crushed rock known as regolith, and continue working through the run.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s goal was to dig up the regolith and then deposit it in the form of a long berm, a challenge that mimics NASA\u2019s future needs to build up protective walls on the moon\u2019s surface to keep infrastructure safe when rockets launch and land, kicking up lunar dust.<\/p>\n

The Virginia team was among 10 that made this week\u2019s finals from 47 entrants. The competition shifted from UCF to the Astronauts Memorial Foundation\u2019s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which has its own room filled with simulated lunar regolith.<\/p>

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During their runs, some team members donned white, protective suits amid the hazy dust clouds kicked up within the plexiglass competition enclosure, outfitted with massive air filters and shop-vacs to clean off the equipment. They hauled in their robots while others watched, then commanded them remotely from a control room.<\/p>\n

Teams get a second chance to improve on their first effort. On Wednesday, the 22-person Virginia team was preparing for round 2 by assembling replacement wheels.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of how these failed catastrophically during our run, we decided to go with the metal wheels,\u201d Son said, noting they used those wheels on the team\u2019s rover in 2025. \u201cSo, they\u2019ve been at the UCF arena, they\u2019ve been at this arena, they have not been on this specific robot, but they\u2019ve been on our previous robot, and therefore that\u2019s enough of reassurance for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t the only team facing hurdles. The University of Alabama team\u2019s robot had a major issue with one of its wheel motors spinning erratically.<\/p>

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\u201cWe initially thought that the robot was stuck in some crater, but the wheel was actually just pulling in the opposite direction, making the robot very difficult to move,\u201d said junior Ethan DeLuca, the software lead for the Alabama Astrobotics team.<\/p>\n

Alabama\u2019s team is an eight-time champion of the Lunabotics Challenge, which began in 2012, but they came in third in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw more than one issue. I think the software is partially responsible for some of it, but yeah, we\u2019ll just need to go through everything that we saw, make solutions to everything as best we can, and then just put our best foot forward in the next run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The finals finish Thursday and are being streamed live on the Astronaut Memorial Foundation\u2019s YouTube channel at youtube.com\/@amf875<\/p>

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Kurt Leucht, a NASA software engineer, has been acting as the live streams\u2019 emcee this week. He explained the challenge has plenty to trip up competitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a specific area that they\u2019re allowed to dig in and a specific area that they\u2019re allowed to dump or deposit in, but in between those two areas there\u2019s an obstacle field. It\u2019s not just a straight trip, they have to avoid rocks, they have to avoid craters, unless they can drive over the rocks and craters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winners are not necessarily the team that builds the biggest berm. The judges take into account the weight of the robot as well as the energy needed to run it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your robot uses more power, you know that\u2019s not necessarily great for the for the moon, so if two robots make the exact same size berm, and one of them uses less power, they will have an advantage for the overall grand prize.\u201d<\/p>\n

That prize is $5,000 with smaller cash awards for other categories.<\/p>\n