Lunar Builders: Robotic Arm Challenge
Introduction
Welcome to the Lunar Builders: Robotic Arm Challenge, co-organised by the UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult (SAC) and the European Space Agency’s Spaceship from the European Center for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ESA Spaceship ECSAT).
The Catapult and ESA are calling you to sign up for an exciting challenge, where university students will program a two-armed robot to assemble structures using lunar regolith blocks – both in simulation and with real hardware. Collaborate in a team to tackle real-world engineering problems, showcase your creativity, and compete for recognition in innovation and technical excellence. Whether you’re looking to demonstrate your skills, gain hands-on robotics experience, or simply push the boundaries of what’s possible, this hackathon is the perfect opportunity to build, learn, and innovate.
The Challenge: Building in Space
Imagine you’re on a lunar mission, tasked with building critical infrastructure out of locally sourced materials. How do you make it happen? This is your opportunity to answer that question.
Teams will put their skills to the test by programming a robotic system to achieve a set of assembly challenges, using blocks that represent what in the future could be the literal building blocks of structures on the moon and beyond.
ESA have been working on creating blocks from lunar space dust – read an example of that here – and now you have the opportunity to explore what role robots might have in building structures from these blocks.
Whether you’re testing your wall against simulated forces or designing the most efficient build strategy, your objective is to work as a team, produce the most elegant algorithms, and communicate your results effectively.
How it Works
The hackathon is split into two main phases:
- Phase 1: Simulation Phase
- Phase 2: Hackathon Weekend
Phase 1: Simulation
In the first phase, teams will work in a virtual environment to program a simulated two-armed robot. This phase provides teams the opportunity to focus on developing their problem-solving strategies, algorithms, and control logic without the constraints of physical hardware.
The system will be based on the real-life UR10e robots by Universal Robots, each equipped with a Realsense depth camera sensor and two-finger gripper.
The software will utilise the ROS2 framework (Humble) and the simulation environment will be in Gazebo.
Using the provided simulation tools, teams will test and refine their code to achieve optimal performance from a set of challenges building structures out of lunar regolith blocks.
By the end of this phase, teams should have a well-tested and effective software solution, and a well-documented codebase. They will be asked to present their key results in a short live presentation, where they get the chance to show off their skills.
Deployment on real hardware does not need to be demonstrated.
Phase 2: Hackathon Weekend
In the second phase, the winners from phase 1 will be invited to an in-person event to celebrate their achievements and work together to put what they learnt into practice!
This phase introduces real-world challenges, such as dealing with hardware limitations, sensor noise, and physical obstacles. Teams will adapt their simulated solutions to function effectively in the real-world setup, ensuring that the robot can autonomously build a regolith block structure successfully.
Major Milestones
Phase 1
- October 15th – Hackathon announcement
- Register your team
- November 18th – Project Kickoff
- Intro Webinar
- Tech pack released
- January 31st
- Deadline for delivery of results
- Live presentation day
- February 28th
- Announcement of winners
Phase 2
- 29th-30th March – In-person hackathon
- Weekend-long event
What will you gain?
- Practical exposure to space robotics challenges
- Networking opportunities with fellow engineers, and making new contacts across the globe
- Feedback from subject matter experts
- Motivation, guidance, inspiration and self-discovery. If your future way in life past your degree still seems uncertain to you, this could be the chance to get inspired and focused on something you may have not thought about before. You may also discover things about yourself that you were not aware of previously.
Prizes
The winning teams will gain:
- Tour of Satellite Applications Catapult’s Robotics Facility in Westcott
- Certificate to commemorate your win
Rules
- Team
- All members of the team must belong to an academic institution and actively enrolled on an educational course; all students are welcome, you don’t have to be related to the area of robotics/aerospace.
- Teams must consist of at least two people.
- Applicants for the challenge must be registered with a university at the time of application but can be in any year of their undergraduate or postgraduate studies.
- You may receive guidance and mentorship from academic staff, professors or other outside sources, but persons not on the registered student team must not actively participate in the code development process or the presentation of your work.
- Participation in the challenge is done so on a team basis, any changes to the team must be submitted to the organisers with appropriate reasons in order to be considered – changing team members to gain an advantage will result in disqualification.
- If selected, teams must be available and eligible to travel to the UK for the hackathon weekend. SAC and ESA cannot sponsor Visas, and teams will need to make their own arrangements for accommodation and travel to Westcott, UK.
- Development
- Your solution should utilise the provided ROS framework. Code shall be developed in either C++ or Python, or a combination of the two (including the usual scripting/macro languages for config files).
- The robots will be initialised in the same starting position, and all unsorted bricks will be confined to a box location, arranged in one orientation on an even plane (rotations will differ), and will be also initialised in the same positions for each attempt.
- Additional materials should be kept to a minimum. Teams might want to create their own gripper interfaces to better handle the bricks, but overly-complex mechanical or additional actuated solutions will not be allowed.
- Assistive frameworks for building (e.g. guide rails) will also not be allowed. Your structure must be free-standing, built entirely from bricks manipulated by the robot arms, and contain no other materials.
- Submissions
- All code and related materials must be submitted electronically by the designated deadline. Late submissions will not be accepted.
- Failure to turn up (virtually) to present on the live presentation date will also result in disqualification. On a case-by-case basis, for those reasonably outside of the GMT time zone, we will accept the alternative of submitting a pre-recorded presentation, please reach out to discuss this with us.
- Ethics
- All participants are expected to demonstrate respect for fellow competitors and judges. Collaboration and constructive feedback are encouraged. Abuse will not be tolerated.
- Any team found to be violating the rules or engaging in dishonest practices (e.g. plagiarism) will be disqualified from the challenge at the discretion of the judging panel.
