Dig in! $5,000 Grants available for 2012 NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition

The NASA Minority Innovation Challenges Institute, or MICI, will be offering minority serving institutions the opportunity to apply for a $5,000 grant to assist their schools in entering the 2012 NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition. Lunabotics is a university-level competition that encourages innovative lunar excavation concepts from universities. These concepts may result in clever ideas and solutions that could be applied to an actual lunar excavation device or payload. The challenge is for students to design and build a remotely controlled or autonomous excavator called a lunabot that can collect and deposit a minimum of 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of lunar simulant within 15 minutes. The competition will occur in the spring of 2012.

Those interested in this grant opportunity should visit http://nasamici.com/?p=468 to register for a free live videoconference on May 11, 2011, at 3 p.m. EDT. The videoconference will feature Theresa Martinez, NASA — Minority University Research and Education Program, or MUREP, Small Projects Manager, and Paul Secor — NASA MICI coordinator. They will explain the competition and grant application process.

Additional video conference sessions concerning Lunabotics will be also be held during May, including presentations from past university Lunabotic teams. Updates on the dates and times of these presentations will be posted at http://nasamici.com/?p=468.

Applications for grants are due June 30, 2011.

Please email any questions about the grant opportunity and informational videoconferences to Mary Baker at mary@nasamici.com.