Diverse Autonomous Robot Student Competitions

I mentioned the AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition at the bottom of this post a couple weeks ago. To follow up:

Scientific hopefuls dive headfirst into challenge - Gizmos duel in underwater robotics bout - Peninsula Beacon News - This covers the Underwater competition, and mentions the surface competition that should be being held now (Aug 7 - 9) at the same location this year.

Here's a press release on the winner of the competition, the University of Maryland. Now they're getting ready for the Autonomous Robot Speedway a bit closer to home (at the College Park campus). It sounds like they must have had a lot of fault tolerance with the various challenges they overcame.

They used the Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NBRF) and the University Space Systems Lab during their testing.

Here's the Robotics at Maryland winning team site. It includes lots of posts (including some from the competition), pictures, and videos.

The press release also mentions another UMD win: Project TURTLE Wins NASA Competition - From the PR:

A team of aerospace engineering students won first place in the undergraduate division of NASA's Revolutionary Advanced Systems Concepts - Academic Liaison (RASC-AL) student design competition in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Project TURTLE (Terrapin Undergraduate Rover for Terrestrial Lunar Exploration).