The Week Junior UK – 24 August 2019

15

Scienceand technology

24 August 2019•The Week Junior

GETTY IMAGES

·REUTERS

·REX SHUTTERSTOCK

·NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Rival robotsgetreadytocompeteunderground

T

he US Department of Defense has

startedaseries of underground

racesfor robots called the

Subterranean Challenge. The aim is to

improve the ability ofrobots to travel

throughcaves and other underground

environments on their own.

Teams of engineers and scientists

from around the world wereinvited

by the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency (DARPA)–part of the

Department of Defense–toPittsburgh

in the US to test theirrobots in the first

challenge. It iscalled theTunnel Circuit

and takes placefrom15–22 August.

The challengerequires therobots

to roam through old mining tunnels

and find objects that have been

hidden there, such as phones.Two

more challenges will be held in 2020,

ahead ofafinal, which is due to take

placethe following year.Morethan

£4 million in prizemoney is on offer to

the winning teams.DARPAsays that

the lessons learned from thiscontest

could help developrobots thatcan

rescue survivors from natural disasters.

Italian astronaut LucaParmitano has

become the firstDJ in space. On

13 August, he performedaDJset on

boardthe International SpaceStation

(ISS), whichwasbroadcast live on a

cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea.

Parmitano is an astronaut for the

European SpaceAgency (ESA) and

has been on the ISS since21July.He

wastrained to mix music byaGerman

DJ called Le Shuuk.Le Shuuk loaded

aseries of songs ontoParmitano’s

tablet, along with special softwareso

that Parmitanocould mix the songs

together and add in different sounds.

The set lasted for 12 minutes andwas

watched by an audienceofaround

3,000 people.Parmitano even used the

zero-gravity environment of spaceto

show off some unusual dancemoves.

The ideawas to get younger audiences

moreinterested in the ESA’s work.

Despite proving popular,Parmitano

isn’t expected to swap hiscare er as an

astronaut forDJ-ing any time soon. He

is on the ISS as part of ESA’s Beyond

mission,aseries ofexperiments to

develop spacetravel for the future.

FirstspaceDJs pinszero-gravityset

One team,called CoStar,includes

scientists from the spaceagency

NASA. The team is testing

robots that they hope

will one day be able

to searchcaves

on other planets.

The researchers

believe that these

robots will be

crucial in the search

for extraterrestrial life (living

things outside planet Earth) thatcould

dwell in protected and preserved

underground environments.“If thereis

life in our solar system, these arethe

most likely places to harbour it,”

explains Ali Aghar,from

the CoStar team.

CoStar also

plans to test

arobot called

Drivocopter,

which the team has

designed to drive along the

ground and fly through gaps in

cave walls.

SpaceDJLuca

Parmitano (left).

VISITsciencenature.theweekjunior.co.uk

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The robots have

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