Led by chief engineer Nathan Stonitsch and president Andrew Hadikusum, Purdue Lunabotics is a team of around 40 engineering students from different disciplines at Purdue University who come together to design and manufacture a lunar mining robot each year.
They undertake this project for the annual NASA Lunabotics Competition, a challenge where teams from various universities build an autonomous robot capable of mining in a lunar simulated environment.
The Purdue Lunabotics robot
Purdue Lunabotics has competed in this challenge for 11 years. This time around, the team built a 0.6x0.6x1.1-meter lunar mining robot weighing 50 kg.
“Under optimal conditions, it is capable of extracting 400g per minute of gravel underneath an overburden of fine lunar regolith simulant,” shares Stonitsch.
“It features current sensors, encoders and a real sense depth camera allowing for autonomous operation. The major design highlights are the mining tool which is a series of buckets on a conveyor belt that can be lowered around 40 cm into the ground enabling deep mining capabilities. The onboard storage system can store and deposit up to 10 kg of gravel into a container 0.5m off the ground. Lastly, the drive system utilizes differential drive and large grousers for increased traction on the fine lunar regolith simulant.”
Utilizing Protocase Designer
In previous years, Purdue Lunabotics had built their own electronic enclosure for the robot. This was a bit of a hindrance though, as their mechanical teams had no option but to construct the enclosure before the electrical crew could assemble and test the electronics.
Seeing a need for better efficiency, the team explored their options for external vendors to build the five-sided box they needed to house all of the electronic components. They found Protocase – the fast lead time, sponsorship support and in-house CAD software was a perfect fit.
They used Protocase Designer to design a 5-sided enclosure to house all of the team’s electronic components, and loved the experience of the free downloadable 3D CAD software.
“Protocase Designer was great,” Stonitsch says. “It was easy-to-use and allowed us to design the enclosure to our exact dimensions and specifications as well as include all the necessary holes for our electronic bulkheads and attachment mounts. Additionally, the ability to export the model allowed us to verify its integration into our overall system.”
“We were able to include bulkhead and attachment holes into the design allowing for easy integration into our system. We required a dust resilient electronic box with a clear lid for easy failure diagnosis, and Protocase delivered exactly what we were looking for. Additionally, the enclosure’s dimensions perfectly matched our specifications, allowing for seamless integration into our system.”
Working with Protocase
Protocase’s Student Sponsorship Program supports innovative student engineers and designers with top-quality sheet metal and CNC machined parts and enclosures. As a student organization, Purdue Lunabotics depends on donations and sponsorships, so the aforementioned program was instrumental to the team’s success. Apart from the financial benefits, they also saved a lot of time by working with Protocase.
“Protocase’s sponsorship played a vital role in the success of our project,” explains Stonitsch. “As a student organization reliant on donations and sponsorships, collaborating with a company like Protocase would typically be cost-prohibitive. However, thanks to Protocase's sponsorship, we were able to get a professionally-made custom electronics enclosure.”
“Designing and manufacturing a robot within a year is a difficult endeavor, and effective time management is crucial. With Protocase handling the electronics enclosure, we saved a significant amount of time. This allowed us to allocate more time to other important tasks and enabled our electronics team to start the assembly process much earlier compared to previous years. Protocase’s support was pivotal in streamlining our project.”
Admirable Competitive Performances
Purdue Lunabotics got two chances to put its autonomous robot to the test. The NASA Lunabotics competition was held virtually this year. Caterpillar hosted the Caterpillar Robot Mining Competition, an in-person contest, at the University of Alabama team’s testing facility.
“At the Caterpillar Robotic Mining Competition, we placed third in autonomy and collected the fifth most gravel out of the 22 teams,” shares Stonitsch. “Additionally, in the NASA Lunabotics virtual competition, we received an honorable mention for our system demonstration and presentation, placing sixth out of 48 teams overall.”
With Purdue Lunabotics’ requirements for efficiency, speed and ease met, Stonitsch is satisfied with what his team was able to accomplish this year with the help and support of Protocase.
“In especially time-sensitive projects such as competitions like NASA Lunabotics, Protocase’s speed and support team are great resources to ensure the timely completion of your project. The sponsorship allows us to increase the quality of our work and increase our performance at competitions!”