2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge Approaches

A lot of news is appearing about the upcoming 2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge:

A preview of the 2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge... - Green Cheese Solutions, one of the competitors, has a very nice collection of links and videos on the teams that were officially announced recently.

Moon Diggers to Compete in NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge - Astrobotic on the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams Page

UBC Thunderbird Robotics is getting a lot of press coverage, presumably as a result of the unveiling mentioned below:

Moon dust-digging robot made by UBC students to compete in NASA challenge - Yahoo! News Canada

UBC students prep moon-ready robot excavator - CTV British Columbia

UBC engineering students unveil moon dust-shoveling robot before NASA competition - The University of British Columbia

Engineering students build moon dirt digging robot for NASA competition - Vancouver Sun - It sounds like they've gotten a lot of education value out of the competition over the years, with 350 students participating. Domino's Pizza gets credit for major team sponsorship.

LU students developing technology to mine on the moon - Sudbury News

Space Elevator and Lunar Industrialization Conference Set for December - Parabolic Arc - You can find links for the flyers and conference program at the THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SPACE ELEVATOR SYSTEMS page. As in past years the schedule shows lots of good Space Elevator Games content. In addition, Matt Everingham is scheduled to discuss the Regolith Excavation and MoonROx Challenges. Will Pomerantz is slated to discuss the Google Lunar X PRIZE, and one of the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams is also on the schedule.

From twitter:

@paulsrobotics - Packing up the robot today! A couple of strategy runs in the box (no digging).. so exciting! (Broadcasting live at http://ustre.am/54fd)

Robot is packed in the box waiting to ship! Event is this weekend @ NASA Ames. We'll let you know if its webcast! Go WPI! #WPI

@grncheese - Steve continues to improve the bot, while I deal with logistics

At least the driving directions are simple-- get to 1-80, drive 1811 miles, take the Mountain View exit...