According to this NASA press release twenty-five teams have registered for NASA's Regolith Excavation Challenge scheduled for Aug. 2-3, 2008, on the campus of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The objective of the competition is to build a roving autonomous excavator capable of navigating, excavating, and transfering approximately 330 pounds of simulated lunar regolith, moon soil, into a collector bin within 30 minutes. "NASA is looking for new ideas for excavation techniques that do not require excessively heavy machines or large amounts of power. Excavating lunar regolith will be an important part of any construction projects or processing of natural resources on the moon."
