European Rover Challenge 2014: Robotic rovers do compete over Mars exploration

The "Scorpio" Mars rover constructed by students of the Polish Wroclaw University, at the European Rover Challenge 2014 on September 4, 2014 in Checiny, Poland Robots built to traverse the rugged terrain of Mars battled it out in Poland on Friday in a competition to find the best way to explore the Red Planet.

The European Rover Challenge 2014 has drawn competitors from as far as Colombia, Egypt and India, keen to prove their machines have what it takes to conquer the giant mountains and unforgiving canyons of Earth's neighbour.

The automated vehicles, designed to emulate NASA's Mars rover explorers, will be tested performing four tasks on red soil imitating the surface of Mars.

Tasks include surface exploration, helping an injured astronaut, gathering soil samples and searching for signs of life.

"At last, our robot Scorpio 4 is ready for the competition," Szymon Dzwonczyk, a 21-year-old student at the Wroclaw University of Technology in southern Poland, told AFP.

"It's a four-wheeled modular build that can be used in different ways for scientific exploration," he said.

An early version of his team's robot won second place in last year's global University Rover Challenge, organised by NASA in a Utah desert.

First place went to students from Bialystok, in eastern Poland.

"Coming second made us want to work harder," says Dzwonczyk, who is also hoping to attract commercial interest in the versatile machine.

The weekend competition is being organised by the Polish branch of the International Mars Society, focused on "furthering the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet," according to its website.

Members of the Kielce University of Technology team watch their "Impuls" Mars rover before the European Rover Challenge 2014 on September 5, 2014 in Checiny, Poland

Under way in Checiny, southern Poland, the European Rover Challenge is open to the public.

NASA experts are expected to attend a conference on its sidelines exploring humans in space.

Electrolux Design Lab competition: Flying mini-robot cleaners wins

The winners of the annual Electrolux Design Lab competition have been announced, and first place has gone to a young designer from Colombia, Adrian Perez Zapata. 

His design is of a ball shaped unit that houses sensing technology along with 908 independent tiny flying miniature flying robots—upon command from the host unit, they fly off and clean up dust and dirt in someone's house.

They can also deposit air freshening chemicals.

The annual Electrolux Design Lab competition is held by the famous household appliance maker for the purpose of stimulating, and prodding to action, design students from around the world.

The first prize winner this year gets 5,000 Euros and a chance to work with professionals in the field at Electrolux's main design center for six months. (These will be the same designers that failed to come up with anything as creative as the prize winner. I hope Zapata is impressed!)

Zapata's design was inspired by both nature and work being done at Harvard, he told those in attendance at the award ceremony.

He noted the efficiency and cleanly beautiful way insects work together to pollinate flowers in his garden.

Also, he mentioned that researchers at Harvard have built tiny flying robots that mimic bees and since the theme for this year's competition was Inspired Urban Living (as it applies to social cooking, effortless cleaning or natural air) he combined the two concepts and came up with tiny bee-like robots that carry a capsule capable of depositing a drop of water onto a surface, (and presumably sucking it up again along with the dirt it holds) and then returning to the housing unit, for depositing—similar to bees returning with nectar.

His idea also calls for the main unit to have the capability of scanning a house to note its layout and of course, to detect which parts of it need cleaning.

That information would be conveyed to the flying bots and they would then go clean it.

Electrolux reports that over 1700 entries were received this year from 60 countries across the globe. The competition was conducted in five stages, each winnowing down the number of entrants.

The final winners were chosen by a panel of experts.