Support Montana Tech's NASA Robotics Club

For over ten years, NASA has held the NASA Robotic Mining Competition at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  This competition has challenged college students to design and build a robot to compete in a simulated mining environment.  Seven of these years, Montana Tech has sent a robot and a team to compete against approximately 40 other college teams.

The Montana Tech NASA Robotic Mining Club (NRMC) is a multi-disciplinary club, where the students work together to design, and build a robot to compete at the NASA Robotic Mining competition at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The competition consists of a robot being either remotely operated, or autonomously to move, dig, and dump as much of the simulated Martian surface from one end of the arena to the other in the allotted time.

Approximately 30 students participate in the Montana Tech NRMC and 10 students make the trip in May to Florida. Students include everyone from Freshman through graduate school.

This year we are proud to say that Montana Technological University’s Robotic Mining Club recently won the top mining award at the NASA Lunabotics Competition at the Kennedy Space Center. The competition saw 38 universities competing for the top honors.

We aim to keep improving and there are two primary costs associated with the competition.  The first is the building of the robot.  Usually the cost of this ranges from $2000-$4000 each year.  Students design the robot and materials are purchased.  Custom components are created for the robot and fabricated in-house on Montana Tech campus.  The other cost is the trip.  For each student traveling the cost is around $1200 including airfare, housing, and local transportation.  Between 4 and 12 student and faculty travel together each year bringing the cost up to $15,000 for the trip.

We are hoping to raise $10,000 to help us realize our improved design and excel at this year's competition.

Thank you for considering making a gift today to support the Montana Tech NASA Robotics Club Club. Please help us spread the word! Share this project on social media, by email and tell your friends!