Students from dozens of universities across the United States gathered at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for NASA’s 2017 Robotic Mining Competition (NRMC). Students showcased and competed with their robotic concepts, which could potentially be used by NASA on actual future off-Earth mining. . . . Johanboeke said that the criterion of complete autonomy was added around four years ago. An example from this year’s competition was the University of Alabama. They concluded their scheduled 10-minute segment completely autonomously. Not one member on the team touched the controls after they pressed the start button for the entire 10 minutes the team had to complete their assigned time. At the end of the first run, the University of Alabama team had collected 358.5 pounds (162.6 kilograms) of regolith. Sources: Spaceflight Insider, Focus On