There has been an unexpected accident on Mars that has damaged the astronauts’ key equipment in a novel way. The astronauts have not trained for this kind of technical challenge, and experts on Earth are several hundred million kilometres away. There is a limited time to fix this problem (4 hours) and the habitat stores large amounts of spare parts (100 000 different components). In this new challenge Epic teams get to design a system that enables astronauts on Mars and experts on Earth to develop a solution to the technical challenge and implement it correctly on time. The system needs to withstand the harsh Martian conditions and take into account the time delay between Earth and Mars. Each team focuses on a specific subproblem: 1. How are astronauts going to map and communicate the status of the accident area and objects to experts on Earth? 2. How are the astronauts going locate and collect the correct parts from the storage facility? 3. How are the astronauts going to verify that correct parts have been collected from the storage facility? 4. How are the experts going to provide assembly instructions for the astronauts? 5. How are the astronauts going to identify the correct part when assembling?     Keywords

• communication
• robotics
• 3D heat map
•  automation

In this challenge teams must design a way to guide light from a light source to the greenhouse that is under the "Mars" regolith. Team learns to guide the light from one point to another while keeping maximum intensity and distributing it evenly at the destination point. Keywords

•         Greenhouse
•         Optical fibre
•         Closed-system
•         Parabolic
•         Mirror-systems

#biology #plantgrowing #insectfarming #mars #earth

In this challenge, the team will learn to design a robotic device that can be remotely guided. The map of the environment is not known in advance with the exception of few reference points. Thus, the team must develop a smart way to map the area and create the shortest route between the objects. This challenge imitates the difficulty of developing remotely controlled robotic devices for Mars. Keywords

•         Remote control
•         Machine vision
•         Robotics
•         Mapping

  #education #communication #learning #mars #earth

In this challenge, team will learn about designing a Mars suit. Goal is to have a high mobility Mars suit with puncture resistant layers. Keywords

•         Problem solving
•         Ergonomics
•         Mobility
•         Physiology

#marssuit #teamwork #mars #earth