I suspect that most people reading this have some idea of what took place on Saturday, but I will fill in some gaps. I'm still exhausted, but here goes...

Summary:

Nine robots actually competed
No excavator put regolith in the collection box
Only a few even moved out of the corner
Only one dug any material at all

Fortunately for me, the Tornado was in the last two categories, and was awarded the first place trophy. This is an honor, and better recognition than last year, but the $500k would have been nice.

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However, I have a fantasy that 7/31 will be "hands off", so that makes 24 days...

I am happy with the progress, but still lots to do. Finalizing the drive train, and still looking for the "just right" motors. I am using a conveyor to lift material into a hopper, and stumbled upon a key piece of information that finally led me to an excellent design. Preliminary testing yesterday gives the green light...

I received 500 lbs of JSC-1A in March, and built a 4x8 sand box. It doesn't allow driving around much, but makes a big difference for testing mechanisms. I suspect that others bought some, but I don't know. A five month lead time didn't help matters.

It sounds like everything will start Saturday morning, I'm not hearing about a Friday night mixer like last year. With the quarantine at the start of inspections, it doesn't look like there will be much time for on-site, last minute tweaks.

I was reflecting about the absoluteness of the whole thing while thinking about actual NASA missions. We get one shot; put the machine in the box, hook up the power, say "Go", and hope for the best. It was the same with the early Apollo rockets, some went up, some blew up. I'm sure the engineers were gritting their teeth before launch just like we will be… ;-)

I have been working on the excavator for many months at a somewhat leisurely pace, and am now starting to feel the crunch, as I imagine everyone else is...

The video went well, as most sub-systems are operational. I'm still working on the navigation, and it's going fairly well, however, I still need to examine plan B.

After the registration close date I expected to hear about the remaining teams, but was surprised to hear that 5 more signed up. As with last year, I suspect that some won't make it to the competition, perhaps 50%, but we'll see. I don't know what the refund policy is for those who opt out. Regardless, it will be a busy weekend.

With so many teams involved, it will be fun to see all of the designs. Things have been quiet on the web, as expected, so it will also be interesting to what gets published after the competition.

Be sure to check the FAQ often, or set up an RSS feed to it. I was surprised to see the talk about passive components. Since I hadn't really included any in my design, it made me wonder what I was missing. I have been whining about the ramp being a side effect of an un-filled sand box, but Matt assures me that the design challenge offered by the ramp is something NASA wants specifically addressed. I told him I would stop whining about it now.

I also expressed some concern about voltage drop at the robot power connector, and that due to the long power umbilical this year, it could be a real issue. I suggested using the third contact of the power connector as a sense line for a regulated power supply (perhaps better than last year's) to make sure we actually have 24 VDC delivered to the bot. If others share this concern, please send a message to CSEWI…

I guess that's all for now, the countdown continues…

I have gotten a few comments posted about the next regolith excavation challenge, and I will address those, and some other issues here...

The 2007 challenge was a little strange. The first prize was $125,000, and that should have been enough to cause a lot of interest. Initially, I heard that over 100 teams expressed the intent to enter, but by the time I entered, only 9 were actually planning to attend, and only 4 showed up at the competition. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is 30 miles from the contest site, why weren't they there? I can only imagine that they all thought it would be too difficult.

I didn't enter until I determined that I could use a stationary machine, but I expected other teams to have fancy rovers picking up material and dumping it into the collector. I was very surprised when the other three teams all had stationary machines.

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... is publishing an article on Sunday, July 1, about the NASA Centenial Challenge program. They will be focusing on the latest three challenges, including the regolith challenge that I participated in.

A photographer from the magazine spent a day at my house a couple of weeks ago, so I am eagerly waiting to see how it looks, what they said.

Check it out... NY Times Magazine online

Jim