![]() The teams presented their concepts and bots first in a fluorescent-lit conference room in Pasadena. The University of Maryland’s bot can switch between walking on long, flexible legs and rolling on wheels. “You don’t have to be a space nut to know these are cool,” Kempton says. The University of Connecticut’s machine also switched between two movement mechanisms: walking on four legs and lowering itself onto treads like a tractor. ![]() The University of Maryland’s bot used both legs and wheels to navigate, putting down wheels to roll when terrain was smooth and swapping into leg-mode to tackle slopes and rocks. A robot would drive stakes into the ground at the top and bottom of the crater and string cable between a motorized chassis would carry payloads along the cables. Instead of building a stand-alone robot, CalTech envisioned a gondola system strung from the crater rim to the base-a way to ferry equipment, materials, and maybe chunks of ice across treacherous terrain. “We can imagine a warehouse on the moon, stocked with all the pieces you might need,” the team explained, allowing astronauts to build any number of different versions.
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