(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
- Let me give you a prelude
to what my presentation
is going to be about.
All right, we're going to assume
that there's a small group of people
that are right now on the surface of Mars
with all of their equipment.
You can see here's part of their equipment
that they had.
We're going to also assume
that some of the members
that are on Mars right now
were actually at one time
were a SEMMO graduate.
In case you don't know that,
that's the engineering club here.
Okay, here's a scenario.
For a period of time, no one
can leave the Mars habitat
because there's some solar storms going on
or there's something that,
maybe everybody's sick,
but there's a bunch of chores
that have to be done.
So we have a rover there
at the Mars habitat
that we can configure to go out
and do these various chores.
Basically now we have university students
that are working on rovers
just for that future event.
Now what you're look at,
this is one that was
done by college students
from total scratch.
Okay, so my presentation today
is called the University
Mars Rover Challenge 2011.
It was the challenge
the Mars Society began
the first one in 2007,
and now it's become international.
This one, the one I'm gonna present today
was the one that occurred last
summer in Hanksville, Utah.
If you don't know where
Hanksville, Utah is,
there is it is right there
in the middle of the desert in Utah.
Del Mar's located right about,
let's see, does this thing work,
Delmar's located there.
So you can see it's
quite a ways from here.
Okay, and here are the challengers,
and you can see they're all ready
to start the actual challenge itself.
Okay, what are the
majors of these students
that enter this Rover Challenge?
You're gonna say, "Well, they're all
"gonna be engineers and things like this,
"they're all gonna be graduate students."
I will point out to you
that over half of these are
Freshman and Sophomore students,
and they're gonna do all of this work
in their own spare time,
during Christmas vacations,
during Thanksgiving and during holidays.
Less than half of them
are actually going to be
electrical engineers or mechanical
or civil or industrial engineering,
so less of them, so we,
less than half of them
are actually engineering majors.
The others are Biology, Chemistry, Math,
Computers, Physics,
Accounting, Education majors,
and all of them have one thing in common:
they have a real passion for space
and they want to be a
part of our space race.
- [Audience member] No geologists?
- [Instructor] Uh, yeah,
geologist also in there,
should have put that in there, I guess.
We actually did, you know,
I think it was about five students
that were geology majors.
All right, now, what
the students had to do,
they had to design, build,
and compete with rovers
that could be used for that scenario
that I told you about.
We're gonna be in the
Mars habitat on Mars,
and then we're gonna send
it out to doing the work.
So what they're doing,
they're preparing a rover
that can do this kind of work.
Okay, so I will point out to you
that all expenses, and including travel
and lodging and everything else
that's done with this challenge
is done by the participating
teams themselves.
Basically, the Mars Society gives them
no money whatsoever.
So let me show you some of
the participants that we have.
This would be Oregon State
University, Corvallis, Oregon.
You see, they had a
pretty good contingent.
They really get serious about this.
They have their own T-shirts,
they have their own little motto,
they have a little bit of everything else,
and that was the rover that they designed.
Brigham Young University had
a fairly large contingent,
they were just a few hundred miles away.
Then we had the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This time they only had five,
and they did not get the support
from the college that they wanted,
and I think this is maybe why
they didn't perform as well
as they could have here.
All right, then we have
the University of Waterloo,
which is in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Had a pretty good contingency
of students from there.
Then York University.
Now, these were real
feisty students in here.
They were from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
And then we go to our across
the ocean participants.
This is a Copernicus Team
from the Nicolaus Copernicus
University at Torun, Poland.
Then we have the Scorpio team.
I don't know if I'm
pronouncing this correctly
'cause I don't speak Polish,
but that's a Wroclaw
University of Technology
at Wroclaw Poland.
Then we have the Magma 2 Team
from Bialystok University of Technology
from Bialystok, Poland.
So these are our participants in here.
I will tell you that when
the Polish team comes,
they are basically treated
like rocks stars in Poland.
They are on television interviews,
they are all in the press
and everything else.
This is a little thing
I got off the internet
about, after the competition,
they're talking about
everything that they had there.
But one of the things they did prepare
was a, for the television, they told me,
I'm gonna include only
about one minute of it.
They'd finally put together their rover,
and they're gonna test
it out from the school.
They went and had a bunch gravel
dumped over there on the campus
so they could test it out.
So this gives you an ideal of their rover.
(upbeat music)
They're trying to get
it up this gravel hill,
have to make several attempts of it.
Each of the wheels are
independently powered.
Almost got it over.
This is what they were
showing on Polish television.
Did not tip over.
So that's just a little
bit of it in there.
As you can see, I'm gonna be
highly favorable of this team,
'cause of all the work that they did.
Okay, here we are.
Now we're in Hanksville, Utah,
the Rover Challenge is ready to begin.
The students got there on their own,
the Canadians students basically drove,
the American students drove,
and of course the Polish students,
they had to come from international travel
with all of their equipment,
which means everything
had to be broken down,
then they have to come and put
them back together in here.
So right now we're meeting
at the Whispering Sands,
a motel in Hanksville,
and there's a briefing of
what's going to happen.
So get all the students together,
and then what, from
here after the briefing,
then we're gonna go in a caravan,
and we're gonna head out toward
the site of the competition.
So here we see this is about
10 miles out of Hanksville,
and then we go about five
miles on the road out of here.
So, there's the teams are caravaning out.
So we get an idea, just an
idea of what the terrain
looks like in that area.
Go a little bit further,
we have to go through this one wash,
very narrow, but all the
cars can get through.
Then we head into the open plains again.
This, if you look right in there,
there is the Mars Desert Research Station,
and this looks just like Mars,
has basically the same time
of scenery that you would see
if you were actually on that planet.
So here are the teams
approaching the Mars Habitat,
and of course one of the things
they're all excited about
is not only the competition,
but none of them ever been here before
and they would like to see
what's gonna be on the inside,
so we kind of give them
a little tour of that.
Okay, the Mars Society,
this is called the MDRS,
or the Mars Desert Research Station,
and basically, it's
supposed to be a rocket
that actually landed on Mars.
This is a greenhouse where
you recycle all the water.
Elon Musk, the guy that invented PayPal,
that's the head of SpaceX,
donated the telescope right there.
So they got some pretty
good connections in there.
So here's some pictures of the terrain
at the Mars Desert Research Station
to get an idea of what
it really looks like.
So this is looking out in one direction.
This is looking out in another direction.
You can see, basically
there's no vegetation
in most of the area in there.
It's a Mars-like desert.
Okay, so let me make some
one-to-one comparison.
This is a picture taken by the Spirit,
and one of the craters on mars,
and this is Utah.
Then we have another one was
taken, Victoria Crater on Mars,
and this is the one in Utah.
So I could go and show you
similarities all day long
about why this site was chosen
to put the research station.
Okay, so this truly is
a Mars-like environment.
Okay, most of the students have never seen
scenery like this.
They were just absolutely fascinated.
So what they're doing is they're getting
all their equipment now
and they're trying to
get them all put together
and kind of drive around
and take pictures.
They're just absolutely
fascinated by this.
And it is a beautiful
scenery out in there.
Okay, let's take a look
at the five components
of the competition.
Day one, we have presentations
and later testing of the equipment
and making adjustments on it.
So the first competition
is worth about 100 points.
Now, each team has about 15 minutes
to do their presentation,
and they have to talk about
how they started their organization,
who's the team members of it,
how did they manage it,
what was the cost of it,
who designed the rover,
how did they put,
remember, they're starting
from literally scratch in here,
and what's its suitability going to be
if it was actually on Mars.
So, again, this is typical
of the Mars Society
as I was one of the judges in there.
We pay our own expenses in here,
so it says, "A job of hard work, no pay,
"and eternal glory,"
so that's what it's like
for most of us that volunteer
for the Mars Society.
Okay, so the first presentation
that I'm gonna show
is the one that's done
by inside the habitat,
and it's done by the Waterloo team.
I will point out to you that each team
could spend only a maximum of $15,000
of their team's money,
which they had to raise themselves
for their rovers.
Most of the schools did
not donate the money,
so they had to go outside and bake sales
and everything else they
could to get the money,
and they had to build their
own rovers from scratch.
If your team entered one last year,
you could not use any
components of it at all.
So, what we'll see is
every year when they come,
they, everybody literally
designs new rovers,
and there, seems like every year
they get more and more sophisticated.
So let me just show you,
they're talking about how
they set up their cameras
for this competition.
- And use the telescope
to see the markings,
the three millimeter markings
that are only centimeters away.
For this, in preparation,
we're gonna have strategy camera again,
and a center drive camera.
- [Instructor] They've got a
camera there, there, and there.
- On top of the telescope,
we have two cameras.
We have the black one over here,
which serves the purpose of,
first is to find us exactly
where our telescope's pointing
so it's up and angled out.
- [Instructor] So this
goes to show you some
of the presentations that they,
and I'll show you a couple more in here,
that they had to go through.
They're judged on the quality
of their presentation.
All right, and I will point out to you
that all the components that they used
for building their rovers
have to come right off the shelves,
or if you have a board, you
build the board yourself.
One year, a couple of
years ago, the Polish team
did not have a video board
and they literally built their
own video board in there.
There can be no special outsourcing.
However, the stuff like
laptops and joysticks
and stuff like that, that's
not included in the cost
and you don't have to go
and build your own computer.
Okay, so this is a
presentation by York University
and this lady is going to
explain about their organization
and how they got literally
one of the freshman students
is going to be in charge
of the design of the rover.
- Post-ed-steam sponsorship available,
so this changes from time to time.
Along with this, the other
thing that the machinists
try to ensure is that the fresh talent
or the fresh, new
members who tour the team
have a little advantage.
They can contribute as much
as the experienced member.
So for example, we do
have this year Chi-di
Who is a first-year student
and who is responsible
for making the deployment pa-ti.
- [Instructor] So she's
just discussing each
of the members and how
they each had a part
of the design of the equipment in there.
Okay, faculty advisors, they all had
to have faculty advisors
but they could only observe
and make suggestions.
They were not allowed to be
a part of the money raising.
They were not allowed to make designs.
They could say yes or no on their designs.
Here, we see the University of Michigan
doing their presentation.
They did pretty good on theirs.
All right, all rovers basically have
to use battery power, because remember,
we don't have to have
solar panels on them.
We are in Mars.
We're on Mars, and if
we're gonna send these out,
we'll be able to charge
the batteries there.
Not allowed to use gasoline engines
or air compressed engines
or anything else on this.
Okay, so there's the presentation
that the Magma team
made with their rovers.
All right, as a second
part of the presentation,
the rovers had to be weighed.
Now, you had to weigh every single thing
that the rover was going to have on it.
Remember, you had four different tasks.
So you're gonna have to weigh
all the components to it.
So this is, forget which one this one is,
right in through here, BYU.
Theirs is being weighed.
Okay, you lose 10 points for
every kilo over 50 kilos.
So the maximum that the rovers
weighed was about 110 pounds.
So if you got there and
your rover was overweight,
you were allowed to strip parts off,
but you can never use them again.
One team was a little bit over,
so they decided that they'd go
ahead and take the penalties.
You can see how different
ways they were trying
to lose weight by even
putting little treads
on their tires, which worked sometimes.
So here we see the Waterloo
rover that's being weighed.
Okay, here's the rover
that the Copernicus team
that came in from Poland,
came in at 49.5 kilos.
So they were the closest ones.
They got right there at
the limit of the weight.
Okay, so this is their scale,
their rover being weighed.
Okay, here was the Magma one which we saw
the little video clip on.
They did something that no
one had ever done before.
What they did is they bought
a bunch of acrylic plastic
and they cut this plastic themselves,
and they made it out of plastic.
This weighs about 35 kilos,
so they came in with the
lightest of all the rovers.
They really had some really,
very good components with this one.
- [Audience Member]
Would that work on Mars?
- [Instructor] Yeah, anything,
so what you're trying
to do is reduce the weight.
Okay, so here was a result
of the scorecard so far
for the presentation.
We see that York University won by 89,
but they were really close wins in there.
BYU, there's was about
2 1/2 kilos overweight,
so they lost 25 points.
Okay, so the remaining
competition now is gonna be timed
and it's gonna be scored
with about 100 points
with each one of these competitions.
So let's look at some general
rules for the competition.
All rovers must be operated
remotely by the team
which cannot directly review
the rover on its mission.
Now, we don't have it in the habitat
because we have so many
teams and you have the radio
would interfere with each
other, so we have one team
over here and three miles
away we have another team's
where they're doing their competition.
So instead of being in a rover,
they literally have a tent.
They're not allowed to
look outside the tent,
and most of the rovers are
gonna be about a half a mile
away anyway so they wouldn't
be able to see them.
So here we see that the Oregon team,
Oregon State University is
setting up their command center
for their first competition.
Okay, all rovers are to
be commanded by the team
and they have to use on-board
cameras and wireless links.
So you can see how they
actually had a steering wheel
for theirs and they had joysticks.
You can see these students
are serious about this.
You know what the reward is?
Atta boy, you won it.
- [Audience Member] Wow.
- [Instructor] Yeah, you imagine it,
all the expense and all the
efforts that they're doing,
they're doing it literally
for the love of doing this.
- [Audience Member] What's the
wireless signal consist of?
- [Instructor] We have a big antenna
and they have to remove it.
We don't put that as part
of their weight in there.
- [Audience Member] What form of--
- [Instructor] I'm not sure.
It has to go in with U.S. codes on radios
and all this sort of stuff.
- [Audience Member] Radio--
- [Instructor] It's radio waves, yes.
- [Audience Member] Would
those same radio waves
be the ones you would use on Mars?
- [Instructor] Yes, you
could use those there, yeah.
- [Audience Member] Radiation difference,
being closer to the Sun
wouldn't make a difference?
- [Instructor] No, you can use that there.
Okay, so here we see the Polish,
this is the Scorpio team.
They're getting ready
to look at their mission
and get started.
Okay, like BYU, every team
has their own command center.
We saw the Polish team was
using a lot of laptops, Scorpio.
This one, apparently they
can drive and they brought in
some big monitors for theirs,
but they have everything
from laptops to monitors.
Here's the York team from Canada.
They're setting up theirs.
There's their joysticks.
They have a couple of these,
and they have the plasma
screens and the laptops.
And here was one that the Magma team,
I just have to just, they're incredulous,
what all the things they did.
There's their monitors.
Have you all ever seen this?
You actually have glasses for monitors,
so that's what they did.
Notice they have no monitors at all.
- [Audience Member] Is that
one of the Polish teams?
- [Instructor] That's a Polish
team, that's the Magma team.
Not only that, they built
their own control box.
So you can see, here they are.
This is during an actual operation,
and they're talking with each other.
This one's, we always have
a note-taker to make sure,
because maybe they wanna
enter again next year
and taking all kinds of notes.
So they actually built
their own control box.
This is what they're seeing,
because they don't have any monitor.
Remember, they're trying
to save money flying
from Poland over to the U.S.
Okay, each time has
about 15 minutes to test
and make sure all of
their components are ready
before they start whatever
competition is at that time.
And so we see all the teams
are checking out everything.
All right, you're gonna do
this, you're gonna do that,
so everything's getting ready.
Once they start, they're
gonna be inside the tent.
Okay, you could see how complex
some of these rovers are.
So what they're doing is
they're checking this here.
All right, is there something not working?
Going and making a
quick check on this one.
You can see there's a
lot of parts to check.
Remember, this was done
in their spare time.
They designed this stuff themselves.
They cut the wires themselves.
They put all this together,
freshmen and sophomores.
Okay, here's another one.
You can see that these
things are really complex.
This is something that they
take this stuff really serious.
Okay, here with the Michigan team.
They were getting ready to set up
and something went wrong,
and so now they're losing communications.
And so before they even start,
there's the antenna right there,
and somehow it's not getting in there,
so they're trying to find
out what in the world
is going wrong before the
competition even started
with their particular event.
Okay, special permissions
that would be allowed.
All right, runners are
allowed to walk alongside
the rovers, but they
have to stay out of sight
of the cameras.
And if they get in view of the camera,
they have to just stand still.
They can't point, they can't do anything.
They can't have two-way radios.
They can't have people out
the tent looking at them
giving signals in here.
They're there for a couple of reasons.
One is to film the
performance of their rovers
and to take notes because remember,
we got three other competitions
to do also in here.
So they're trying to make sure
that nothing goes wrong here.
They also have a kill switch
so that if it hits a rock
or something, which we're
gonna see is gonna actually
happen in here, they can kill it,
especially if it starts smoking,
at least they can try to repair
it for the next competition.
So that was something that we allowed
for the runners to do.
Okay, the second competitive task was to,
after the presentation,
that was the first one.
You're going to have to go out here,
somewhere in that general direction,
there's five astronauts that are lost.
You're gonna have to drop them a package
with their number on it,
because of them have their own
specialized rescue equipment in here,
and you have to drop it within
one meter of the astronaut
and you're not allowed to run over him.
All right, so all you
have is just the last
general known location.
Remember, you're just
sitting in a tent here
with your camera,
scanning the countryside,
looking for, to see if we can
actually find an astronaut.
Okay, obviously some of the
astronauts have been lost
for a long time, so
these are the astronauts
that they're looking for.
Okay, so now the stage is set
for the ultimate resupply
of these astronauts.
So they're preparing the rover
for their relief packages.
You can see how each of them
will try different methods
to drop these packages.
Each team will have their own
different delivery systems,
so they're going through and getting ready
for the competition here.
It looks like at the best there's five,
maybe there's four.
I can't,
there's four astronauts there.
So it's gonna turn out each of these
have highly variable results.
Okay, so the team is ready now
to search for the astronaut
and to deploy the packages.
They're taking one last look at it,
and now it's ready to go.
She's gonna be the runner
that's gonna go alongside this
to make sure that nothing goes wrong
and they have to kill the package
or have to kill the
whole competition there.
So here, the camera's
searching for the astronauts
to be able to drop off
this numbered package.
There's the package
that is looking for it.
There it is.
Good news, we found the
first stranded astronaut.
So they're trying to go
and approach the astronaut.
Each team are gonna have their
own method to approach it.
Now remember, if you run over
it, you lose a lot of points.
The idea is not to kill the astronaut.
The idea is to resupply the astronaut.
So it appears we see that
the rovers carefully,
and I just have different rovers on here,
where they're carefully
approaching the astronaut,
make sure that they've
got the correct number.
First of all, they have
to find what the number is
and they have to drop
the package number one
to the number one astronaut.
So dropping off one package at a time
was a real problem for most of the rovers,
because when they dropped one,
sometimes they all wanted to go down.
So this happened to a couple of them,
so some of them had some problems in here.
So we see here's the
astronaut eagerly awaiting
for them to drop the package.
And it's a successful drop.
Now, we have to go and
find the other astronaut.
This is done, I think,
they have 30 minutes
to find all five or all
four of these astronauts.
Okay, here we see another astronaut
receive her rescue package,
so at least some of
these are being rescued.
I don't think that, I
think maybe all one team
did find all four of the astronauts.
Okay, so here is the scores
for event number two.
We can see the Oregon State University,
they were most successful.
Scorpio, Poland, only dropped one box.
When I say one box, they
dropped all of them.
So that counted against them.
Here, Copernicus never even
left it's starting gate.
They were having problems.
University of Michigan,
they got to one of them
and they tried to get the boxes to release
and none of the boxes would release.
Then the Waterloo, what happened
is you have to come back
in a certain amount of
time, and they were way late
to bring in their rover back,
so it ended up costing them some points.
So the winner of this one, easily, then,
was Oregon State University.
So you can see that
problems arise no matter
how well you prepare for this,
no matter what your
competition's going to be.
Okay, with the morning
completion of resupplying
the stranded astronaut.
Now, the afternoon was
you have time for lunch
and you have two hours to
basically refit your rovers
for the third task.
Okay, so task number three
was to go to an isolated
circuit board that
they've never seen before.
They've never seen this.
This is going to be at
least a kilometer away.
It's about a half a mile away
from where their tent is,
and they're going to have to perform
a number of operations.
They don't know what they are.
They have to come and
read them right here.
What it is that I do
first, second, and third?
So that's the same thing you're on Mars.
I know I got this panel
that that's out in here
and I have to go and do a
bunch of resetting on it.
How do I do it?
So they come out there
and they read exactly
what they have to do in the
order that they have to do it.
So you can see some of the
things they have to do.
They have to throw switches
and they have to do them
in order as prescribed
right in through there,
otherwise the thing
blows up, theoretically.
And then you have electrical cords
that have to be plugged in.
Notice that that one's
inset into the board.
So they have to pick up the cords.
That one has to go there,
that one has to go there,
that one has to go there.
So they've never seen this before,
but they were told that this
is what they would have to do.
Okay, so completing these
tasks would be a major
challenge to do remotely.
We can see one, kinda
got one in right there.
Okay, so the first rover's
beginning its challenge.
So first of all, is
trying to get into here
where we can read the instructions.
So getting the positioning
in here turns out
to be a problem that a lot
of them had not anticipated.
So the positioning was
absolutely critical.
After all, you do have your
arm and you have to have it
so that your cameras can see everything
and so that you can go
through and follow all
of the instructions in here.
So this is one of the problems
that some of them had,
was actually the positioning
of their rovers to do the task.
Okay, each rover used different strategies
to insert the electrical plugs.
I just put insert here.
This one actually was able
to go in and put a plug in.
In fact, surprisingly a lot
of them were able to do this.
Okay, so here's, some of
them are gonna be more
successful than others.
This one had the long arm,
but the arm didn't quite
have the flexibility that they want,
and so they had a little bit
of problem with this one.
But they were able to
complete some of the task.
Okay, so here, remember,
all of these were built
by students on Christmas
vacation, Thanksgiving.
They've designed this
whole thing themselves.
They're putting it together.
It's not one person doing
it, but a team of these.
You see how complex these things are.
They had to come up with these
ideas of how they're going
to do all these various tasks in here.
I tell you, I was just amazed
by what these students did.
Okay, judge now, when they're
actually doing all this stuff,
you can see here's the
judges watching everything
to make sure that
everything gets done exactly
in the order that it's
supposed to be done.
Okay, so let's take a look at the scores
for task number three.
Magma won that one handily with 73 points.
Scorpio, their camera stopped working
as they were on their
way, so they were lost.
They couldn't get the camera to work
before the competition ended.
BYU got up to the switch and
I think they did one switch
and they turned it and
the camera fell off.
So that was the end of that one.
Copernicus just could not get their rover,
their rover was too big,
to get in to reach in there
and to do a lot of switches,
so they didn't do very well.
And the poor University of
Michigan, they're the one, now,
this time that didn't even
leave the starting gate,
so something happened
to their rover in there.
So we can see the results
of the competition
for task number two.
Okay, for day three now,
the rovers are going to be,
this next day they're going to be refitted
two more times for two more tasks.
So we can see here where
they're setting everything up.
Okay, on task number four, it's surveying.
What they have to do is they
have to find four posts.
Here is a typical post there.
And they have to describe the markings.
Each of them will have different
sets of markings on them.
They have to have the GPS location of this
at the scale that we tell them to use.
And they have to have the elevations.
You say, "Well, they
don't have GPS on Mars."
Well, I would assume that
they would have a bunch
of repeater stations on Mars
so that if somebody gets lots
they'd be able to find their way back.
So we're going to assume
the same thing here.
Okay, now the teams were not
given these locations at all.
You had to go and find this.
We tell them they're at
least a half a mile away,
it's a kilometer away from the station.
You have to go and find these on your own.
So this is going to take
a lot of camera work
for them to do this.
Okay, there's post number one.
So remember, now, one
thing I must add in here,
they also have to take
a picture of this also.
So here we see this is,
I think, York University
as they're approaching it.
Look at all the different
cameras and everything there.
I think they were very
successful on doing this.
Okay, there's post number
two, see what it looks like.
They had to go through and describe that
and give the elevation of it.
This is post number three.
It was stuck up in a canyon.
There's two teams, I think,
found all of them in there.
Okay, now here's the Waterloo command
trying to find his post.
Remember, now, we see the
picture from the outside.
This is all they see.
So they're trying to go
through and actually find out
where those actual posts are.
So this is Waterloo.
I set this one up so that you
can see what's going on here.
(calm music)
So here's the rover
trying to find the post.
There's one way back over there.
We got the cameras looking everywhere.
They're about, pretty close to half a mile
away from the tent right now.
Still looking for it.
All right, then everybody
has to get out of the way
because the camera's pointed toward you.
I think they missed that
one post over there.
So it's not as easy as
what you think it is
for them to find these.
Okay, this is, now, you
have to get back in time.
So here we see the Waterloo rover trying
to get back to the starting gate.
(upbeat music)
- [Audience Member] What
was the time limit, sir?
- [Instructor] 30 minutes.
- [Audience Member] 30 minutes?
- [Instructor] Yeah.
They have to come and there's
a little X on the ground
right there, and they have to come exactly
and land on that X.
They get penalized for distance.
Now, he's trying to find where that X is.
So you can see that this
is not as easy as for us,
taking a look at it this
way, it's fairly easy.
Okay, here is the York command.
I'm doing this here so
you can see what it's like
in the tent with them
trying to locate the post.
So here's the command.
(engine rumbling)
It's about 100 degrees there, by the way.
So there he is with the sticks,
and they're trying to look at the screens.
(mumbling)
See, they're pretty serious about this.
Notice that he's doing it with his iPhone,
looking for it, too.
(mumbling)
- Are you approaching the pole?
(mumbling)
- [Instructor] So you
can see these students,
they are really intent on this.
Okay, and there they are getting fixed
on that particular post.
Okay, Magma 2, again, this would become,
it's obvious it's one of
my favorite teams on there.
They did something that
no one else has done.
What they did is they decided
to deploy a hexacopter.
A hexacopter has six propellers on it.
If use this, we're going
to assume that the gravity
is going to be different on
Mars than it is on Earth.
So if your battery on this
thing weighed one pound,
you had to put another extra pound on it
to make it just as if it was
actually gonna be on Mars.
So one of the things,
too, if you deploy this,
you have to take it away
from the starting center,
take it out somewhere, drop it,
and then go do your searching.
When you come back, you
cannot leave any equipment
out there, so you have to pick it back up
and come back to the starting gate.
So there's the actual hexacopter.
Let me show you how this is,
they're going to deploy it,
and then you'll see that
the rover is gonna tell
the hexacopter has a camera on
it, trying to find the post,
and then the rover is
gonna try to follow it
and see if it can find that post also.
They're going to deploy the hexacopter.
(suspenseful music)
- [Audience Member] This is awesome.
(mumbling)
(laughs)
- [Instructor] Sorry about jiggling.
I was walking and holding
the camera at the same time.
So you'll see from the shadow
when they start the props.
Come on, there we go.
One of the props hadn't started yet.
- [Audience Member]
What's the power supply?
- [Instructor] Batteries.
- [Audience Member] Whoa!
(laughs)
- [Instructor] There it takes off.
- [Audience Member] What a smart idea.
- [Instructor] There's cameras on it too.
You have somebody with a
joystick that's controlling this.
- [Audience Member] Wow.
- [Instructor] Okay, and
there goes the rover.
Now, the guy with the rover
command has to be able
to communicate with that hexacopter there
to see where the posts are.
So here's the rover taking off
now, trying to find the post.
So they're coordinating
between the hexacopter and the rover.
These are the runners following it.
You can see the hexacopter over
there looking for the post.
So they found one and the
hexacopter's gonna make sure
that they go to the right place.
Wouldn't it be fun to control that?
- [Audience Member] It's
a real life video game.
- [Instructor] Yeah.
- [Audience Member]
Yeah, flying, you'd say?
- [Instructor] So it's making sure
he goes right to the post.
So now they're doing their
survey to get the GPS
and the pictures and the description
and the elevation of it.
- [Audience Member] Did
it give them advantage,
the hexacopter?
- [Instructor] It seemed to help.
I'll tell you, there will
be a team that does not use
a hexacopter and they got all of them too.
But this is the first time, now,
we anticipated that this was gonna happen.
Remember, they had to put
extra weight on this thing.
If you put a bigger battery to operate it,
that means the cameras, you
have to put in a bigger battery
to counterweight it in there.
Okay, here the Magma team hexacopter.
This is the operator right there.
He's doing that right there,
and also he's communicating
with the other guy there.
Okay, now, do you see where the rover is?
And then the two of them
are doing it like this.
Remember, they can't even see each other.
- [Audience Member] Was
that considered part
of the rover weight?
- [Instructor] Yes, they
have another joystick
over here for the rover.
I think this one was used
principally for the hexacopter.
- [Audience Member] No, was
the hexacopter considered
part of the actual weight of the rover?
- [Instructor] Yes.
- [Audience Member] When it was weighed?
- [Instructor] It weighed, I
think, about a half a pound.
- [Audience Member] Wow.
- [Instructor] Yeah, it's
a incredible little machine
that they have.
They had to buy it on the open market.
That was part of their cost.
I think it said it cost them
$1,100 for the hexacopter.
- [Audience Member] Wow.
- [Instructor] Okay, so
the Magma team, of course,
has to return to the home base.
There's an X on the ground and they have
to pick up that hexacopter.
So we'll see how they
go about picking it up.
There's a wire sitting on
top of it right in there.
Now, remember, you can't see this.
You're in that tent.
They don't want to destroy it.
They're running out of time.
I thought they had an unusual way
of picking it up and carrying it.
Now, they have to find the X.
So they're turning the cameras around,
trying to see where it is.
You have to be impressed with this team.
Okay, where's the X?
There's the X on the ground.
They have to be within one meter of it.
You can see where they were.
They got right back to that in there.
- [Audience Member] Really well done.
(laughs)
- [Instructor] They
were an incredible team.
Okay, BYU, I didn't put any music to this
because I wanted you to listen.
We've got all these judges
and the runners following it.
They're gonna have to
use their kill switch.
Unfortunately, it's rough ground
and I'm gonna lose part of it.
You're going to see the flag,
but I think I have it when
they actually do the crash.
So let's see what happened to them.
So they had just got
through surveying a post
and they're trying to
go find the second post.
They're running out of time,
so they get into a big hurry.
See, they got trouble with their tires
coming apart their now, one of the treads.
- [Audience Member] Like
their center of gravity
is a lot higher, making it more unstable.
- [Instructor] Yeah.
(shouting)
They thought it was gonna
turn over there and it didn't.
- [Team Member] I didn't think
it was going to make it over that.
(laughs)
- [Instructor] Now what's happened,
they gotta go faster than
I can keep up with it.
They're headed toward a rock.
- [Team Member] What are you doing?
(shouts)
- [Instructor] Now, they can't hear us.
They see it with the
camera, and they back up.
Okay, now they're gonna get in a hurry.
They have to get back.
(shouting)
It started smoking,
they had to go and do
the kill switch on it.
That's not good.
(laughing)
So this was a real
problem for the BYU team
on this particular effect.
But because they were able
to use the kill switch on it,
they were able to continue to
compete with the other things.
So here we see the scores for the four,
the survey competition.
The one that had the
hexacopter got a perfect score,
and York, that did not have it,
they just had their telescopes
and all their cameras,
they made a perfect score.
BYU, you can see after the
first post that crashed.
Copernicus, they didn't
find all of the posts.
Michigan, they got the correct signs,
but they didn't have the correct GPS.
And Waterloo, they used
the wrong GPS system.
They only found, I think, one post, too,
so that's what the score is for right now.
We've got some teams here
getting pretty close to each other.
Oregon State did fairly well also.
Okay, now for the last competition.
This is for the biology people.
The rovers had to find
an example of bacteria
or anything that's living in that area.
Now, there's some bushes,
they don't include that.
So you're gonna have to find any bacteria
or algal life forms in here.
You have to pick up a sample
and you have to bring it
back to the station to test it.
You're given about 15 minutes
to prepare a presentation
to go look at with a microscope,
do some chemical tests,
whatever it is, and
then you have to give us
a 15-minute presentation
of what did you do,
why did you use this method,
why didn't you use another method,
and give the results of your search.
Okay, so here's some of this extremophile
that live out in there.
This is a bacteria that lives
between the little edges
of rocks, little, tiny, green algae
that lives right in through there.
That was one of the things
that they could find.
There were a few little
lichens growing on rocks
out in there, and that
would be another thing
that they could find.
So they basically had to
go and find the ones here.
Actually, there was,
underneath some of these rocks,
they could also find this
extremophile bacteria.
Okay, most of the rovers
actually had little spectrometers
on them, just like the
real Mars rovers do,
so that they can start
looking for anything
that may be organic.
I thought that was pretty sophisticated
for these little machines.
Okay, the rovers, now,
they were required to collect samples.
It had to be a minimum of
25 grams without penalty.
It couldn't be over 250
grams without a penalty,
and return them to the
home base for analysis.
Look at how complex that rover is.
Remember, this is done by
students in their part time.
So they're getting ready.
Now, they already did a
spectrometer on this one.
They were going to try to turn it over
to see if there was something
else underneath this one.
Okay, while looking for the samples,
Oregon State almost got
into trouble because,
I'm gonna show you just
a short clip of it,
they went up to this wall to see
if there was any bacteria in the clay.
There was a bunch of rocks
there, and of course,
the camera didn't see them.
So that when they made their
turn, what's gonna happen
that the rocks are going to
force them against the wall
and they're gonna get stuck a little bit
and they'll finally work
their way out of it.
Again, this is all that they see.
They're doing everything
from inside the rover.
So let's see what happened to that rover.
(suspenseful music)
Now they're wedged.
The back wheel's spinning
and nothing is happening.
They're wedged again.
(dramatic music)
(laughing)
Perfectly timed music in there.
So they got out of that trouble.
I don't know how I did that,
that just came out right.
Okay, now here's the rover Scorpio,
and they're trying to
pick up some samples,
as we see right here.
What I'm gonna show you is the command
of what they're trying to do.
This is what their rover.
I think this picture is in
the command center itself.
In Polish.
(speaking in foreign language)
So they're looking.
So there's the steering wheel.
That's the joysticks.
So they were saying, "Hey, look
over here, look over there."
That's my Polish on that.
(laughing)
The thing I wanna point out to you
is how intent these students are.
They are really intense here.
Okay, then I have to show you Magma 2,
how they're gonna pick up a
sample for biological testing.
One of the things that's too
bad that the camera doesn't
show here is that on their
scoop that they have,
they had one that was colored blue
and the other one was colored orange.
It actually helped them
to see which one was which
in trying to pick up the samples.
They were the only one
to come up with this.
We're gonna see how they
were picking up their samples
for biological testing.
So they're gonna try and pick
up that rock right there.
It's stuck.
(upbeat music)
They're bound and determined
to get that sample.
Still stuck, tried to get back and forth.
Trying everything to get it loose.
They got it.
- [Audience Member] Yay.
(laughs)
- [Instructor] Now they have to put it
in the rover container.
And
it's right there is where
they're gonna drop it.
But look at there, they've
got other rocks in there.
We thought for sure
that that would fall off
before it got back to the
station, and it didn't.
(laughing)
These guys were just absolutely
remarkable on this team.
Okay, now, when they got
back with the samples,
they had to weigh them, and
then we'll see that the biology
majors that they had would start looking
at the microscope.
They had a few little chemical tests
and they had their spectrometers.
I said 15, they had 20
minutes to actually go through
and study this, and they
had to put together a report
that explained why did they
pick that particular area?
What did they discover?
How did they know that they
discovered all of this?
Okay, upon completion of their studies,
now what they'll do is they
give the presentation to us.
They have about 15 minutes.
We really grilled them.
Why didn't you do this?
Why didn't you do that?
How come you didn't look for
that sample, and all this.
We did some real intense grilling.
You cannot believe how
good they were prepared
for this thing.
They knew exactly what they were doing
and they were answering the questions,
and it was just absolutely amazing
how well they were doing this.
Again, we see here,
each team had to justify
their methods of collection.
So he's explaining right in here,
he just got through explaining what he saw
in the microscope.
He's explaining what they
did with the chemistry.
We have another one in here
that's gonna explain why
they went and picked up
the samples where they did.
So the judges, we had to
keep very detailed notes
on the teams' presentation,
so this wasn't something,
"Oh, well, they did this, they did that."
We had little tiny
forms we had to fill out
on literally everything that they did.
So here we are, trying to discuss,
did we miss something on the
discussion with the teams?
Do we need to come and
ask them one more thing?
We decide, "Well, I guess
that's gonna be okay."
- [Audience Member] What's the background
of the other judges?
- That's a very good question.
He's retired, a retired
professor from BYU.
He is a graduate student in
George Washington University.
She is a graduate student in,
I think, in Arizona.
She went to the Hill Country
Community College in Waco.
Yes?
- [Audience Member] In what fields?
- Geology.
No, he is, let's see, no.
He's an engineer.
She's a geology major.
He is a,
a physics major or an engineering major.
He's going to some big school back east.
I can't remember where it is.
He's working on his doctorate.
He's just getting his
masters in geology from BYU.
He's teaching at Del Mar.
(laughing)
So we had very diverse backgrounds.
There was a biologist in here somewhere.
I don't think she's in
that particular picture.
Okay, so there's the scores.
So BYU and Magma were very, very close
to each other in there.
So again, Waterloo got
penalized because they were late
coming back and they had over 250 grams.
So they got penalized.
So we got very exacting guidelines.
Okay, now it's late afternoon.
The competition's over with.
It's time to party.
So what we do is we go
and cook them hot dogs
and hamburgers, and everybody gets to go
and communicate with each other.
This has been some real
serious competition,
and everybody's gonna be
looking at everybody's rovers
and asking each other how
did they do all of this?
And of course, just eating and talking
is not going to be enough.
The rovers have to have some fun too.
So we can see here where the rover,
the rover come and knocked him down.
Now, he's on the Copernicus team,
was driving him all over the place.
So this gives you an idea.
Here's all the crowd, and
then what's happening,
they're gonna be sitting there talking
and then somebody's gonna get
the controls of the rovers,
just to give you an idea of the chaos
that was going on in here.
(calm music)
This rover's happy to be
done with the competition.
(laughing)
This rover says, "I've had enough of this,
"I'm getting out of here."
And you better look out behind you.
Everybody's got their rovers
doing everything in here now.
There's the other one
going way down there.
Here comes another one.
That was a lot of fun.
These students were just, really,
they were just amazing students.
Okay, now finally is the scores,
and everybody is really
exited about who's gonna win
the competition.
This is getting pretty close to sunset,
so I had to kind of filter
this out a little bit.
Hopefully we can see it.
- Now will be the
announcement of our top three.
Really, everyone out here
did an outstanding job,
but our top three will all
be getting custom awards.
Those will be coming to you very shortly.
Cost-in-um we can't do
them on the spot here.
In third place we have, with 348.8 points,
that's how specific they've got this year,
Oregon State University.
(clapping)
In second place, with 364.8 points,
our friends from the
north, York University.
(clapping)
And
for the second year in a row,
the first place team
simply walked away with it.
There's no other way to say it.
It doesn't matter what
language you say it in,
for the first time ever, the
University Rover Challenge
has a winner from the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Congratulations to the Magma 2 team.
(cheering)
- [Instructor] You don't think they were
enthusiastic about this?
- Give it to your champion, Magma 2.
(cheering)
(clapping)
- [Instructor] And that's their reward.
There's no finances.
They paid for all this themselves in here,
so these are people that
just absolutely love science.
Okay, so there's the
final scores that we see.
All right, just to demonstrate
how far these rovers
have advanced, this is some
that I went to in 2009.
Here's one of the rovers
that they used at that time.
There was another one of the rovers,
and there was another one of the rovers.
So you can see, they've
become much more sophisticated
every semester as they go along.
All right, now these are the ones
that are gonna enter this summer.
There's 12 universities.
Probably three of them
will run out of money
before they get there.
They go all the way from
Ohio State University,
North Carolina, John Hopkins.
In fact, this is Cornell University.
They've already submitted their design,
and that's what their
rover's gonna look like.
- [Audience] Wow.
- [Instructor] So like I
say, they're getting more
and more sophisticated every
semester, I mean every year.
So you saw what we can get for $15,000.
Let's take a look at NASA
and their hardware expenses.
Okay, now I just wanna point out to you,
in the United States, we
spend $11.4 billion a year
on pet food and we spend
$2.5 billion a year
on Halloween candy.
Keep these two numbers in mind.
NASA's cost to build rovers
vary from $25 million
to $1.8 billion.
So we don't even spend as much as we spend
on Halloween candy every year
for the Mars Rover programs.
Okay, the first rover
on Mars was Sojourner.
It was there in 1997.
It weighed 23 pounds,
about the same size as the
rovers we were looking at.
Used an 8-bit processor.
This was $25 million, this little rover.
Here we could see some
actual footage of it
when it was on Mars.
(upbeat music)
That's what $25 million gets you.
That's actually on Mars.
- [Audience Member] Is it on
autopilot or is somebody--
- [Instructor] They gave
commands to it from Earth.
It takes like 20 minutes for
the commands to get there.
And guess what?
The Sojourner, the module died,
but they said that that
rover kept working for years,
just going around, just doing
whatever it liked to do.
(laughing)
Okay, we have two other rovers on Mars
the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
They weigh about 408 pounds each.
The cost to build each
of these is $400,000,000.
That's not for the rocket to get there
and that's not for the maintenance of it.
That's just to build it, $400,000,000.
The rover Opportunity
is in winter shutdown,
although it may be coming back up.
Spirit died in the last
winter on the surface of Mars.
All right, they were to
operate three months,
but Opportunity is eight
years old and still working.
It's amazing what we've been
able to do with that one.
I'm gonna bypass this slide
and go to the next one.
This is the one ton
Curiosity that was built
for $1.8 billion.
It took off in November of
this year, and it's gonna land
on Mars on August the 8th of this summer.
There is the Sojourner,
there is the Spirit of Opportunity,
and there's the Curiosity.
So this is what $1.8 billion will get you.
Now, this is gonna be the most,
I wanted to show you this
'cause this is gonna be
the most complex landing ever.
What they're gonna do, with the other ones
they used a balloon to bounce.
What they're gonna do is
they're gonna have a heat shield
and then they're gonna have a parachute
and then they're gonna have
what's called a sky crane,
a rocket, that's gonna come
in here and lower it down
and the wheels are gonna come
up and it's supposed to work.
So let me show you what's
supposed to happen.
I think this is in August.
So here it is, leaving Earth.
It left Earth.
(dramatic music)
On its way to Mars.
(upbeat music)
Now it's being steered.
With the heat shield.
Then it deploys, gets
rid of the heat shield,
deploys the parachute.
Now the sky rocket comes out.
It cables down the rover.
Lets it go and goes away.
Now the rover starts working.
Now, this is what's
supposed to happen here
in the next, this August.
Hopefully this will work.
Okay, guess what?
The U.S. government has
just now decided this
is going to be the end for Mars.
There's gonna be no
more exploration of it.
This is the last rover ever.
So that's it.
So what are they gonna do
with the space program?
They just decided they aren't going to go
to the asteroids anymore.
So I'm not sure what's
gonna happen in here.
Hopefully we convince people
that a future Mars landing
will be done the same
way it is with the Moon,
with an American astronaut, and hopefully
that student actually began
here at Del Mar College.
And this is not what I want to see.
(laughs)
Thank you for attending.
(clapping)
(upbeat music)
