Hello!

We are proud to announce our 2021 competition results. Despite an extremely challenging and unusual year, our team secured a 6th place finish out of 31 teams. The competition hosts also announced that our team was among the top 10 finalists for the excellence award.

On behalf of our team, thank you once again for your support! Though it wasn't easy, your generosity helped us adapt our plans for this year's competition through the unforeseen obstacles of the pandemic. We couldn't have done it without you! 

We wish the best of luck to the 2021-22 Astrobotics team and hope you will continue to follow and support the new 49er Miner Robotics team.

Thank you!

The UNC Charlotte 2021 Astrobotics team

 Ryan Barbour            Computer Engineering

Jacob Daniel            Mechanical Engineering Technology

Chaitanya Gokule         Mechanical Engineering

Jacob Herbert         Mechanical Engineering

Armel Luabeya Tshitala    Systems Engineering

Peter Mancini            Mechanical Engineering Technology

Ricardo Martinez        Electrical Engineering

Sydney McCain        Mechanical Engineering Technology

Joseph Satterwhite        Mechanical Engineering

Holden Stanley        Mechanical Engineering

We have several exciting updates to share from our team. 

On April 16, all of our NASA deliverables were submitted and we continued testing until our presentation date was determined.

On May 7, we received a 1st place award for the UNC Charlotte Senior Design EXPO for our EXPO Poster Video.

May 8-9, we had been struggling with the rover design during testing, but the weekend before our presentation to NASA, we were able to mine roughly 4.5 kg of simulated regolith. This exceeded our goal of 1 kg (the minimal amount required to qualify for competition). We were able to run 6 mining cycles within the 15 minute timeframe specified for competition.  

Finally, on May 13 we presented to NASA for the Robotic Mining Competition and they seemed very pleased with the results and had few questions. A very good sign! We are now waiting for the competition results.

And we are most excited to share that on May 14, we graduated! Almost all team members have jobs lined up and/or are headed to grad school.

We can't wait to report back on our final competition results. In the meantime, check out the video below of our rover in action.

Thank you again for your generous support of our team.

Sincerely,

The UNC Charlotte 2021 Astrobotics team

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We had no clue what to expect from this year’s crowdfunding campaign in the beginning. This was the first time in several years the Astrobotics team was required to fundraise to acquire the substantial project budget necessary to compete in this year’s competition!

With all of your donations, the $4,576 will enable us to make major changes to the previous rover design and rebuild from the ground up. We are striving to win the 2021 NASA Robotic Mining Competition this upcoming May! 

We plan to continue posting regular updates on our Facebook page if you would like to continue following our journey: https://www.facebook.com/astrobotics.uncc 

We really appreciate your support and investment in our success!

Sincerely,

The UNC Charlotte 2021 Astrobotics team

Ryan Barbour            Computer Engineering

Jacob Daniel            Mechanical Engineering Technology

Chaitanya Gokule         Mechanical Engineering

Jacob Herbert         Mechanical Engineering

Armel Luabeya Tshitala    Systems Engineering

Peter Mancini            Mechanical Engineering Technology

Ricardo Martinez        Electrical Engineering

Sydney McCain        Mechanical Engineering Technology

Joseph Satterwhite        Mechanical Engineering

Holden Stanley        Mechanical Engineering

Time flies when you’re having fun! 

Thank you so much for supporting our senior design project! We have less than one week remaining in our crowdfunding campaign and are 88% to our goal.

We have begun our outreach efforts to the local community, including virtual presentations of our rover design and related material to some high school CAD classes. It is very rewarding to speak with students in STEM classes and give such exciting real-world examples of the methods the students have learned! 

We are currently preparing our Critical Design Review to NASA and are aiming to have a finalized presentation prior to Thanksgiving. This review will include a finalized rover design along with supporting analyses and an in-depth explanation of the rover processes and functionality. 

In preparation for this CDR, a critical flaw in the rover design was studied this past week and required a complete overhaul of the mining system design. With an outstanding effort from the team over the weekend, we were able to change the two drum motors’ orientation, implement a dual chain-drive system, extend the two drum arms, extend the conveyor into a two-part system, and relocate the two front control boxes using a new custom design. These revisions will allow the rover to mine the simulated regolith at a greater depth while increasing dust tolerance and a dust free operation. Analyses on this new Noble Miner assembly are underway and showing promising results!

Please share our efforts with friends and fellow coworkers, we would greatly appreciate it. With just a few days left, I am optimistic that we will achieve our goal thanks to the generous support of alumni, family, and friends!

Sincerely,

Jacob Daniel

Great News!

As of Wednesday, 10/28, we have officially completed all of the tasks required for Phase I of the Robot Mining Competition. Our executive summary and most recent designs and animations of the rover were delivered in this submission. Another one of our deliverables included making a multimedia site to store all of the current CAD animations. 

Our crowdfunding campaign has also been quite successful, reaching $3,500 in a matter of days after our last stretch-goal! With having just over two weeks left for our crowdfunding campaign, our team is wanting to extend the goal once more to $4,500. The reason for the additional increase is to allow the purchase or fabrication of a few additional components to maximize useful data for a successful rover in competition:

• (3) Current sensors                                        $120

• (2) Absolute encoders                                    $500

• (4) New control boxes                                    $80

• (1) Rack and pinion stabilization system        $250

• (2) Delrin rings                                                $250

The current sensors will be used to determine when the mining drums are filled with icy regolith, and empty. The absolute encoders will update the worn encoders that are on the current rover. New control boxes are needed because the design from last year has changed and will be required to accommodate the new electrical wiring. A rack and pinion system will support the rover while depositing icy regolith into the collector bin during competition. The delrin rings will minimize friction between the inner and outer drums during rotation.

Thanks to your generous donations, our team has been able to put our best foot forward and implement a more efficient and flexible design!

Sincerely,

Jacob Daniel, Sydney McCain, and Holden Stanley

Wow!

I want to thank you all for your donations and support of our senior design team. We met our $2,500 goal with 27 days left in our crowdfunding campaign, nearly all from friends and family!

For this reason, we’ve elected to increase our goal to $3,500. With this new stretch goal, the team will be allowed to implement higher quality and more efficient components, have more flexibility when purchasing materials, and allow our team to outsource fabrication of more labor intensive components due to COVID-19 restrictions on machining time in our labs.

Currently, we are putting the finishing touches on our executive summary and final CAD drawings for submission on Wednesday, October 28. Consideration for Phase II of NASA’s RMC is heavily dependent upon this document, and we are confident we will succeed!

While we wait for NASA’s Phase II team announcements, the team will be calculating risk-based analyses, design testing, and beginning procurement of material and hardwares. These are all required to begin the manufacturing process of the Noble Miner. Planning for our senior design EXPO will also begin during this period of time as we wrap up the Fall semester. 

Once again, thank you so much for your helping make this opportunity possible!

Sincerely,

Jacob Daniel and Holden Stanley

UNC Charlotte Astrobotics crowdfunding project leads

Hello!

I am excited to inform you that we have nearly completed all of the requirements to be considered for Phase II of NASA’s RMC!  

We have agreed on a design as a team and finalized preliminary CAD models and schematics of each individual part of the rover, The Noble Miner; this includes complete assemblies of the subsystems. So far, several documents and presentations corresponding with our project management plan have been submitted to NASA and the senior design course advisors. 

An executive summary will be submitted to NASA during the last week of October which will conclude all deliverables prior to Phase II of the competition. Along with finalized rover subsystem designs, our team will also provide an animation of the fully functional rover. This document will be the deciding factor if our team continues to Phase II of the competition. We will continue charging forward and working hard while we wait for results from Phase I of the competition. 

Thank you again for supporting this team and we look forward to updating you again soon.

Sincerely,

Jacob Daniel