Paydirt at 8-Year-Old Mars Rover's 'New Landing Site'
Opportunity completed its original three-month mission on Mars eight years ago. It reached Endeavour last summer, three years after the rover's science team chose Endeavour as a long-term destination. This crater is about 4 billion years old and 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.
The impact that excavated the crater left a jumble of fused-together rock fragments around the rim. In a chunk brought to the surface by a later, much smaller impact into the rim, Opportunity found evidence that the original impact released heated, underground water that deposited zinc in that rock. Later after the impact, cool water flowed through cracks in the ground near the edge of the crater and deposited veins of the mineral gypsum.
The annual FIRST Robotics competition is in full swing with some 60-thousand high school students competing in regional challenges using robots they built in six weeks from a common kit of parts. NASA is the largest sponsor of the national FIRST program, supporting five regional competitions and more than 280 teams. Since January, high school FIRST Robotics teams across the country have worked tirelessly to build, program and test robots in preparation for this year's challenge called Rebound Rumble.
FRC District Championships
The 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition Regional Events are now over! We have reached the point of our District Championships. The Michigan FRC State Championship & Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Championship are taking place this weekend! Just around the corner is the FIRST Championship!
If your team received a NASA Grant this year, please complete the exit surveys so that you are eligible for a grant in the future! + Exit Survey + Exit Survey Submissions
Botball is expanding in various ways this season:
A new Facebook registration - Botball Educational Robotics Program; A new website, Botball Community, social network for current and former Botball participants, New regional venues in Denver, Tucson, and Chicago, as well as in Austria and Qatar.
For 2012 team registration, as well as the schedules and regional venues, educator resources - software - the latest twitter, and sign-up for the newsletter, or to see video archives of past games, check the main Botball website.
As you may have noticed there is now a Twitter feed on the right side of the Robotic Alliance Project's webpage! We would like to invite everyone to follow us on twitter and help spread the word about the Robotics Alliance Project and NASA! We plan on using Twitter to post about announcements, new features, and much more!
+ NASA Home Page
