Members and mentors of New Mexico Tech’s Lunabotics Challenge team recently took off with their lunar mining robot.
Courtesy photo
New Mexico Tech students placed 11th nationally out of 71 teams competing in a NASA-sponsored competition challenging college students to design, build and operate an autonomous lunar miner. New Mexico Tech competed against other schools for the first time in the NASA Lunabotics Challenge, held May 22-27, 2022 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A team from New Mexico Tech recently achieved national recognition and announced that they have won several awards at NASA’s Lunabotics Competition.
- Nova Award for Stellar Systems Engineering in First Year Team, NASA RMC Lunabotics Competition 2022
- Best Project Management Plan, NASA RMC Lunabotics Competition 2022
- “Teamwork Award”, 2022 Excellence in Senior Design Conference at The University of Texas at Dallas
- NASA MINDS Finalist, NASA MINDS Competition 2022
According to Dr. Arvin Ibrahimkanlo, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and team advisor, the New Mexico Tech team has been invited to participate in next year’s competition.
“Our motivation to inspire the next generation of curious minds is as strong as ever,” he said.
Tech Lunabotics team members include: Mario Escarsega, Meghan Cephus, Donovan Caruso, Trung Le, Ethan Oesch, Juliana Barstow, Autumn Weber, Nicolas Sheerin, Nakii Tsosie, Quincy Bradfield, Marshal Gold, Jordan Tesillo, Kaleb Bjorkmann, Skyler Hughes; Alex Bethel and Joseph Coston.
