Project Roony - Sweden's Malardalen University

From Robots.net - University Robot Aims
to Put a House on the Moon

Alper Aydemir writes, "This is a new robot prototype from Malardalen University in Sweden about a robot which can deploy a 10msq house. Much like IKEA on Moon, check out the video!" He sent a link to a story in the robotliving.com blog about Project Roony. A team of 14 students at Sweden's Malardalen University are building the robot as part of artist Mikael Genberg's House on the Moon. The idea is to put a scale model of a house on the moon as a symbol. If you're wondering about the name, here's the official explanation: "The name roony is a combination of ROver and moON, and the Y is just added to make the name a little bit more catchy.". Video of Roony deploying a prototype of the "house" after the break. For even more video of Roony's development see the Project Roony news page.

YouTube

And in further news... The latest episode of the Robots podcast talks with the father of field robotics, the director of CMU's Field Robotics Center, Prof. William "Red" Whittaker. Following his team's win of the Darpa Urban Challenge, RED's next goal is the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition for 20 million US dollars for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth. Listen to Red Whittaker for more information on the challenge and to see what he plans...