Students’ Zero Robotics Finals live from the International Space Station
On Monday 25 January, more than 100 students from across Europe will meet at the Euro Space Center in Belgium, close to ESA’s Redu Station, to participate in the Live 2015 ISS Finals of the Zero Robotics Tournament. This is the fourth year that the Zero Robotics tournament will turn the International Space Station (ISS) into a gaming arena for upper secondary school students (15-19) from ESA’s Member States.
Since September 2015, teams of students across Europe have been applying their maths and physics problem-solving skills and writing code to control the SPHERES onboard the ISS. SPHERES – short for Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites – are volleyball-sized satellites which obey remote commands and can hover around the weightless ISS using their own power, propulsion, and navigation.
‘SpySPHERES’ is the game theme for the 2015 tournament. On a playing field full of obstacles and challenges, pairs of teams compete against each other to take photographs of the other satellite and beam them back to Earth, whilst avoiding being photographed themselves.
The competition has progressed through multiple rounds of increasing complexity. Previous rounds have been played on an online visualisation platform, which students accessed to test and improve their codes. The final round of the competition began in December, when teams formed International Alliances of three teams based on the scores obtained in previous rounds. Twenty of the teams within the Alliances are from ESA Member States including Italy, Belgium, Romania, Greece, and Germany.
On Monday the live finals between the 14 International Alliances will take place onboard the ISS with the support of the astronauts. The European teams at the Euro Space Center will connect with the other teams participating in the parallel events in the USA (hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston) and Australia via video conference. During the event, the Alliances will watch as the SPHERES battle it out on the ISS using their codes.
ESA’s Education Office wishes good luck to all the teams participating in the finals!
The finals can be followed live online here.
