Its NASA calling for nine techies from BITS Patna
Nine budding techies from Birla Institute of Technology Patna have been invited from NASA to participate in Lunabotics mining competition to be held at the Kennedy Space Centre in May last week.
NINE STUDENTS from Birla Institute of Technology Patna have got invites from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA, to participate in the ‘Lunabotics mining competition to be held at the Kennedy Space centre, Florida, from May 23 to May 28, 2011. NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition is a university-level competition designed to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The competition encourages innovation among the students. The innovative ideas generated at the competition may also benefit Nasa in its lunar missions.
This is the only team from east India in which 60 teams from all over the world are participating and only among three from India. According to team leader Prateek Mitra “Given the 80 kg weight restriction, we prepared our lunar excavator using Aluminum frame. It weighs 71 Kg, is 1.8 meters tall (Height restriction was 2 meters), 1.5 meters in length and 0.60 meters in width. Given the 24 volt power restriction, we used lithium–iron battery normally used in laptops.”
The second criteria to qualify for the competition was that lunar excavator should be able to excavate 10 kg of lunar soil within 15 minutes. Since lunar soil is heavier and sticker than normal sand and soil on earth, we tested it in our laboratory using sand and dampened soil mixture, mixed with certain chemicals. When we tested it could excavate up to 22 kg, Mitra added. He is a second year student of department of civil engineering.
The other team members include G Anurag Reddy, Rajat Tyagi, Saurav Murarka, Aroop Sen, Visha Teja, Shreyak Tiwari, Subhmoy Ghosh and Anmol Sharma. Assistant Professor M A H.assan will go as the faculty advisor.
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