Braving all Odds with ChondroBot
Sameeha Suraiya · BRAC University Institutional Repository (BRAC University) · 2011
Spotlight Braving all Odds with ChondroBot Sameeha SuraiyaSince the moon landing, space with its wonderful mysteries became the new playground; imaginations rolled far and wide.NASA and Apollo became names that triggered dreams of wanderlust.Today, after more than four decades these names invite the same feelings of mind boggling curiosity and the impulse to beat it.Who would have thought that a group of youngsters from a country that has had no connection whatsoever with NASA and its space explorations, would have something to offer to the top astronauts and scientists in the world --something they had never seen before.For most Bangladeshi youngsters, the idea of robots may be confined to George Lucas movies where these creations exist in far-flung places, and are almost too surreal to be true.What this Bangladeshi group of undergraduates did was creating a robot of their own and participating in NASA's Annual Lunabotics Mining Competition in Florida, making their way to the finals.Four final year students of BRAC University, including three faculty advisors and three volunteers, the team has for sure, shown how Bangladesh is always full of surprises.This is their story.It is not the first time that NASA had organised a programme to encourage scientific thinking among the younger generation.However, the Annual Lunabotics Mining Competition was the second of its kind, inviting international students to participate in the most unique university-level contest.The challenge was to design remote controlled or autonomous excavators, or lunabots that have to collect and deposit lunar simulant.Around 48 teams from five countries, namely, the United States, Canada, India, Bangladesh and Columbia, participated for the 2011 competition.NASA is of course, looking out for clever ideas, and upon evaluation and testing, will adopt the most innovative excavation concept for their next lunar expedition.The team from BRAC University was led by Shiblee Imtiaz Hasan from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), who is also a member of Space Generation Advisory Council that is supported by United Nations and had previously participated in other competitions, having won awards as well.The team also had Kazi