Sample Return and University Rover Rules, NEA Search, SunSat Art, Space Generation Prizes, Nanosat Launch Seminar, More

Proposal Information Updated - Sample Return Robot Challenge

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URC 2012 Rules are Live! - University Rover Challenge

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NASA Human Exploration Community Workshop on the Global Exploration Workshop (PPT) - FISO - This includes "NEA Next" and "Moon Next" scenarios.  The "NEA Next" scenario covers the need to add to our list of reachable potential asteroid destinations.  Earth-based detection of these is mentioned: 

A prize based approach may also provide incentives to include more public participation.

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SGAC Announces the Barcelona Zero-G Aerobatics Challenge Winners - Space Generation Advisory Council

SGAC-EIC Space Entrepreneurship Paper Competition - Space Generation Advisory Council

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Rocket firm presentations at Team Phoenicia Nanosat Launcher Seminar - RLV News

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A lot is happening with the Google Lunar X PRIZE.  For example:

Moon Express announces alliance with Autodesk - RLV News

Did Moon Express just take the lead in the POINT of the Google Lunar X PRIZE? - Evadot

Astrobotic Wins NASA Contract for Robot Teams to Explore Martian and Lunar Caves - Astrobotic

On NASA’s Lunar Heritage Guidelines - Will Pomerantz on his personal site, InstaPom

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Two NASA Goddard Engineers Receive Prestigious Awards - SpaceRef

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International SunSat Design Competition - National Space Society blog

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Space Lab student competition on YouTube attracts 5500 teams - ESA

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Here are a couple of interesting non-space prizes:

NASA Tournament Lab/Patent Office Challenge - NASAHackSpace

DSTA launches TechX Challenge 2013 - Singapore's Defence Science & Technology Agency starts the 2nd robotic TechX challenge; the first was held in 2008.  The winning team gets S$1 million, which a currency converter tells me is a nice prize.

TechX Challenge Results

It looks like the TechX Challenge results are posted by Singapore's DSTA. As often happens with these challenges, there were no winners the first year. Will there be a second year?

Military Prize Roundup - September 22, 2008

The Wearable Power Prize competition check-in starts today at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, CA. The whole event is on until October 4. Here's the full schedule for the final event. Some highlights:

Oct. 3, 2008: Kids’ Day
Area schools have been invited to bring classes for a day of learning about the WPP objectives and the science and technology behind them. In addition, the students will tour the competition site and exhibits from competitors, major DoD laboratories, and the military service branches.

Oct. 4, 2008: Prize Day
0700: Opening Ceremony featuring the U.S. Marine Corps Band
0800 – 1500: Technology Showcase opens
0900 – 1300: WPP Field Test / Power Wear-Off
1500: Prize ceremony
1500: Technology Showcase closes

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX Challenge final event was September 21 (yesterday). I didn't see information about the winners yet.

The British MOD's Grand Challenge winners were announced on August 19. The winner was Team Stellar (not the GLXP team) and their SATURN.

Miltary Prize Month

A lot of prize events are going to happen in the next couple weeks. In addition to the Regolith Excavation and General Aviation Centennial Challenges, there are a lot of people and teams that have been involved with space prizes at the Oshkosh AirVenture air show. I've mentioned all of these recently, but that's just the beginning.

A number of military innovation prize events are planned soon. The UK MOD Grand Challenge for autonomous or partly autonomous systems to help troops monitor threats. This PDF presentation shows the final challenge extending from August 4-24 at Copehill Down, an urban warfare training village.

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX autonomous urban robot competition has its final event scheduled in August.

It's also a big time for student autonomous vehicle prizes. I've already posted on some of the 2008 ones recently. Here's what's coming soon:

AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Challenge - July 28-Aug 1, at Fort Benning, GA - $80,000 in prizes are available.

AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - July 29 - Aug 3 - The public is welcome and it's a free event. From the Public FAQ: The Competition will be held at the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center's Transducer Evaluation Center (TRANSDEC) pool located on Point Loma, San Diego. More acronyms will be available at the Competition site.

TechX Challenge Update

Here are a few updates from the Singapore Defense Science & Technology Agency's TechX Challenge site:

Photo gallery - includes April 28-29 photos from several teams

The Qualifying Round will be held on May 27 at the Singapore Expo. The Final Event will be held in August.

Qualifying Round Guidelines - updated April 1, includes several tests of the robot, including static inspections, E-stop tests, an obstacle avoidance test, a staircase climbing test, and an elevator operation test.

Miltary Prize Roundup

The British MOD (Ministry of Defense) Grand Challenge had some announcements in January. They're looking for a contractor to support the MOD Grand Challenge event. They also made some changes to the MOD Grand Challenge plans based on observing the U.S. DARPA Urban Challenge, such as making it a 2-phase competition.

Here's a blog from one of the MOD Grand Challenge teams - this one from Reading University. The MOD site has much more on all the teams on their teams page.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Wearable Power Prize site has some fairly new updates involving Instructions and Guidelines for teams as they make and send in certain required documents:

Fuel Plan Instructions
System Description White Paper

Finally, in the Military Prizes section on the right I've updated the Singapore TechX Challenge link which apparently moved.

TechX News Article

The Singapore Defense, Science, and Technology agency points to an article describing details of the TechX military robot challenge. The robots will have to navigate an obstacle course, climb stairs, use an elevator to get to a specific floor, and find targets like a soldier, a bag, or a dustbin.

TechX Teams Announced

Singapore's Defense Science and Technology Agency has announced the teams that are eligible to compete in the $1M TechX competition involving a robot race in an indoor/outdoor urban environment.

Registration Now Closed for TechX Challenge

Per the TechX site, registration for the urban military robot competition closed on June 22. Eligible teams will be announced there on June 30.

You can take the "DARPA Challenges" tag below to include posts on similar competitions not run by DARPA like the TechX Challenge and the MOD Grand Challenge.

TechX Challenge Update

Singapore's TechX Challenge, which is a $1M competition to build a military robot, released the schedule for the challenge meetings. Here's the media page for any future updates.

Singapore TechX Prize

Singapore is offering a prize reminiscent of the DARPA Grand Challenge or the British Ministry of Defense Grand Challenge called the TechX Challenge. After the X Prize was won, I anticipated that prize would be followed by a number of similar, but incrementally more ambitious prizes. For example, I thought the next X Prize (whether offered by the X Prize Founcation, NASA, or some other organization) might be similar to the X Prize but for a somewhat higher flight, or for a more dramatic demonstration of quick turnaround, or for a larger number of passengers (or payload). As it turned out, the space prizes that have been announced have either been much more ambitious (Bigelow's America's Space Prize), arguably less ambitious and definitely completely different (NASA Centennial Challenges), or not following the model of prizes for achieving a specific technological challenge at all. I also did not expect to see many different organizations offer prizes in a similar domain like the military robotics prizes in any area but space access prizes. Finally, at that time I didn't expect the next prize from the X Prize Foundation to be the Genomics Prize. That is all part of the interest of these prizes -- it is as difficult to predict which ones will be offered next as it is for the sponsors to predict who, if anyone, will win their prize. I will be following certain non-space prizes like these, since I think their success or failure will have a great deal of influence on the success or failure of the space prize idea, as well as the approach of technology prizes in all industries with difficult technology challenges.