Sep 14 2016
NASA just recently held this year's Robotics contest last week and a group of ten Engineering Students from West Virginia University won a whopping $750,000 which was given last week in Massachusetts' Worchester Polytechnic Institute, as reported by ABC News. The competition was held last September 4 to 6. NASA's yearly centennial challenge began in 2012 and ran for a total of five years now.
Governor Tomblin met with WVU Mining Engineering students at the Capitol a year ago. (Photo : Governor Earl Ray Tomblin)
The team of students smoothly locked in on the top prize after successfully passing the Sample Robot Return Challenge, one of NASA's Centennial Challenges. They knocked off all other competitors during the Level 2 of the challenge where 10 samples had to be recovered; an even harder task than the qualifying round where teams are given only half an hour to recover one sample.
Phys Org also confirms the good news for the West Virginia Robotics team from a news release made by WVU's Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. The team's famous robot, Cataglyphis won them 11 points ahead of the game.
To quote NASA's Space Technology Mission Deputy Associate Administrator Dennis Andrucyk, "West Virginia University has shown incredible ingenuity, creativity and team spirit throughout every stage of this challenge."
He adds, "They were committed to advancing this technology, and we are proud to say that they have done it". This was Andrucyk's statement as reported in the news site of Nature World News,
The team successfully grabbed the title of over-all winner from six other teams from different colleges which made them $750,000 richer. The amount was said to be the biggest amount by far to be ever given by the space agency.
WVU Mountaineers take on NASA's Sample Return Robot Challenge and Win 2016
Mary Dillon, Director of Marketing and Communication at the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources can't be any more proud of the group. "It's a huge win, a huge event and it will bring a lot of prestige to the college, the university and the students involved in the project," said Dillon in an interview with Herald Standard.