Zero Robotics

[1] Each year teams of students work to produce code capable of performing in a game that can be deployed on the SPHERES.

[3] The Zero Robotics competition was created by NASA Astronaut Gregory Chamitoff when he was working with the SPHERES and realised that the coding interface would be suitable for high school students.

[9] Participants compete together to win a technically challenging game, motivated by a problem of current interest to DARPA, NASA and MIT.

The student's software must be able to control factors such as the speed of the satellite, the rotation, the direction of travel, and many others, to be able to find the perfect algorithm to achieve the purpose and meet the challenges in the shortest possible time than their opponents.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the programs are autonomous in the sense that submitted code will last for the duration of the competition (and across multiple matches) and you can not control or modify their execution.

Participants in Zero Robotics are encouraged to learn and/or improve their knowledge related to basic physics, since optimal algorithms require precise control over forces influencing the speed of the SPHERES.