Welcome to Zero Robotics Live Webcast
The world's first robotics competition in space!
Read more: What is Zero Robotics?
Program Overview
Zero Robotics is a robotics programming competition where the robots are SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites) inside the International Space Station. The competition starts online, on this website, where teams program the SPHERES to solve an annual challenge. After several phases of virtual competition in a simulation environment that mimics the real SPHERES, finalists are selected to compete in a live championship aboard the ISS. An astronaut will conduct the championship competition in microgravity with a live broadcast!
There are two types of Zero Robotics tournaments:
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High School Tournament: Geared towards students in grades 9-12, the tournament takes place from September to December each year. This is an international event open to all teams from the US and member states of the European Space Agency.
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Middle School Summer Program: This is a 5-week program in which younger students learn to program through a graphical interface. The program will take place at selected locations in the US. The first multi-state program took place in CA, FL, GA, ID, and MA in 2013 and is expected to expand to other states (TBD) in 2014.
All tournaments are free of charge. All you need to do to get started is (1) find a team of 5-20 students and a mentor, (2) create an account and (3) register your team for a tournament. The list of currently active tournaments is here.
Game
Student participants compete to win a technically challenging game by programming their strategies into the SPHERES. Students’ programs control the satellites' speed, rotation, and direction of travel. The students program their satellites to complete competition objectives, for example navigating obstacles, while conserving resources such as fuel. The programs are autonomous - that is, the students are not able to directly control the satellites while they are running.
Each year’s game is motivated by a problem of interest to NASA and MIT.
Students create, edit, save, and simulate projects online. They use a graphical editor to write code, then simulate their programs immediately and see the results using a simulation. The programming interface and simulation are entirely web-based, so ZR does not require any software downloads or computer configuration. The system even allows teams to compete against themselves so that they can test different strategies before finalizing their competition submissions.