We are proud to announce the winners in the $30,000 Challenge - Exploring Hell: Avoiding Obstacles on a Clockwork Rover!
By the submission deadline, we received 572 entries from over 80 countries. The Judging Panel was so thrilled by the number of outstanding and innovative entries that NASA is recognizing an additional 12 solutions!
In addition to the $30,000 USD of planned prizes, NASA awarded an additional $4,000 split between the submission with the Most Innovative solution and the submission with the Best Prototype. Ten additional submissions are recognized as Honorable Mentions.
Additional details on the submissions can be found here. You are also invited to join us for a moderated discussion with the winners and NASA on Thursday, July 23 at 10:00 am PDT (Lost Angeles). Register Here.
The top award recipients are as follows:
- 1st Place, $15,000: "Venus Feelers" by Youssef Ghali.
- 2nd Place, $10,000: "Skid n' Bump – All-mechanical, Mostly Passive" by Team Rovetronics.
- 3rd Place, $5,000: "Direction Biased Obstacle Sensor (DBOS)" by Callum Heron.
NASA was incredibly impressed by two additional solutions and awarded $4,000 of unplanned prize money for:
- Best prototype, $2,000: "AMII Sensor" by KOB ART.
- Most innovative, $2,000: "ECHOS: Evaluate Cliffs Holes Objects & Slopes" by Matthew Reynolds.
While we were only able to award 5 prizes, there were very many outstanding entries and we would also like to acknowledge the following Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
- "Cane and Able" by Martin Holmes
- "CATS - Cable Actuated Tactile Sensor" by Team - Spaceship EAC.
- "Clockwork Cucaracha" by Michael Sandstrom
- "DEMoN Fire Sensor" by Santiago Forcada Pardo
- "The Double Octopus" by Thomas Schmidt
- "Mechanical Logic Obstacle Avoidance Sensor" by Christopher Wakefield
- "Mechanical Sensor for Avoiding Compound Obstacles" by Aurelian Zapciu
- "SPIDER (Sense, Perceive, ID in Exploration Rover)" by Ryan Zacheree Lewis
- "Vibrissae Inspired Mechanical Avoidance Sensor" by ARChaic Team
- "V-Track with Scotch Yoke Clinometer – Prototype" by Jason McCallister
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who entered the challenge. While we were only able to recognize a small fraction of those who entered, there were so many other insightful solutions, we are confident that many of the participants will do great things in the future. Thank you all for helping make this challenge a huge success.
We would also like to thank all of our supporters, partners, judges, and anyone else who in any way contributed to our competition community. Without you, we would not have had the challenge that we did.
