Ventimiglia '05 and Team Win NASA Challenge

Jessica Fiddes

Posted October 19

Paul Ventimiglia '05 takes a knee in front of his team, Paul's Robotics. The group won NASA's Regolith Excavation Challenge (and $500,000) last weekend.

Paul's proud parents (on right) were there to witness his achievement.

The winning entry produced by Paul's Robotics.

An action shot of the machine scooping up rogolith during the timed competition.

Last weekend Paul Ventimiglia '05 led an engineering team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) that won the NASA Lunar Regolith Excavation Challenge competition. Engineering groupies will be pleased to learn that the team took home more than a mere trophy – they earned $500,000 in prize money for the achievement.

The Regolith Excavation Challenge promotes the development of new technologies to excavate lunar regolith (moon dirt). Excavation is a necessary first step towards being able to harness and use lunar resources, and the unique physical properties of lunar regolith make excavation a daunting technical challenge. Advances in lunar regolith excavation have the potential to contribute significantly to the nation’s space exploration operations. The timed competition event took place this past weekend at NASA Research Park at Moffett Field, CA. where twenty-three teams used telerobotic or autonomous operation to excavate the most lunar regolith.

Paul's team, Paul's Robotics, was sponsored by WPI and a variety of other businesses and organizations. This was Paul’s second year competing in the NASA Lunar Regolith Excavation Challenge. Last year no competitor moved enough regolith to qualify for the prize money, which was disappointing considering the time and effort invested in such a project. This year three teams achieved the goal: the second place team received $150,000 and third place earned $100,000.

Says Mr. Devine, “Paul’s quote in the New Scientist article – ‘We're excited that the machine did what we designed it to do’ -- is a statement by an engineer of the purest breed: the thrill is in the successful functioning of the device not the monetary reward." But a little financial remuneration never hurt, eh Paul?

During his time at Delbarton, Paul built robots to compete in Battlebots-style events in which robots compete head-to-head in an attempt to disable the other. Paul was also on Delbarton's first-place winning team for the Panasonic Creative Design Challenge during his freshman year (along with Paul Mumma '05, now at Oxford and Joe Pawelczyk '05, now at Lockheed Martin) in 2002 and the second place team for the same competition during his sophomore year. Greg Devine was their moderator during the Panasonic Challenge and continues to mentor young Delbarton engineers. In fact, Delbarton teams won the Panasonic Challenge in both 2008 and 2009. Wave engineering rocks!

To see an interesting video on the importance of regolith click here.
To read the rules for the competition Paul’s team won click here.To read about other challenges in NASA's Centennial program click here.
For Paul’s personal site click here. “The twitter posts are an engaging read,” reports Mr. Devine.
Finally, a good article on last weekend’s event can be found here.