Category: Students

Like the proverbial Phoenix rising from the ashes, the University of Utah’s RoboUtes student robotic team emerged from a crippling lab fire last year to place third in the 2016 RASC-AL Robo-Ops robotic competition in Houston, Texas. “Not having a central home for the team made it very difficult to have the team meet and be cohesive,” said the team’s advisor, U mechanical engineering associate professor Mark Minor. “But the core of the team really made this happen. I’m really proud of what they did.” This year’s five-person team, made up of students from the U’s mechanical engineering and...

The University of Utah’s mining robot team struck gold in them Martian hills, winning the Innovation Award as well as third place overall in the 2016 NASA Robotic Mining Competition in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is only the second time the team has competed in the annual contest. The Utah Mining Robotic Mining Project — comprised of 14 members from the U’s departments of mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, geology, mining engineering and computer engineering — competed May 18 to 20 with a robot that simulates scooping up Martian ice. In all, 45 schools from across the country...