Scarlet Spacehawks

Our Goals

  1. Student designing mesh basket

    Student Engineering

    Provide Illinois Institute of Technology students an opportunity to participate as a team in the full lifecycle development of an autonomous robot.

    Visit IIT's homepage
  2. Robot being transported at Kennedy Space Center

    Competition Excellence

    Demonstrate our design's capabilities in a nationwide competition, putting our robot and team to the test.

    Read more about the competition
  3. Community outreach table

    Community Outreach

    Engage the local community through outreach to inspire students to explore the many fields of STEM.

    View our gallery of previous outreach events

NASA Robotic Mining Competition

We compete in NASA's annual Robot Mining Competition that is held at the Kennedy Space Center. The competition challenges colleges around the country to design and build an autonomous robot that can navigate an arena that simulates the surface of the Moon.

The objective of the robot is to traverse the arena, mine icy regolith simulant, and then return the collected substance to the collection bin. The competition is designed with NASA's Artemis program in mind, which aims to land astronauts on the Lunar surface by 2024.