Robotics: Engineering a Rocket Transporter

Students design, build and program a robotic “super crawler” to transport a payload from a starting position to a target launch pad, use a robotic arm with an end effector to deliver the payload in an upright position and return the robot to the starting point. Students will use the engineering design process to guide them in completing the challenge.

Students will:

• Understand ratio concepts and use rate reasoning to solve real-world problems.
• Create an engineered model, limited by criteria and constraints, designed to achieve the task of solving a complex problem.

Science and Engineering Practices

• Asking Questions and Defining Problems
• Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems
• Developing Possible Solutions
• Optimizing the Design Solution

• This lesson can be completed individually or within a group, although groups of two to three students of varied skill levels are recommended.
• The students need to have completed enough practice programs with their assigned robots to understand how to make their robots move straight for a distance using wheel rotations. The students will be applying their knowledge of ratios and rate reasoning to determine the appropriate number of rotations for the distance required in the challenge.
• The speed of the crawler may play a role in transporting the rocket safely to the launch pad, and the speed of the arm or end effector motion may affect the delivery of the rocket to the target in an upright position. The arm end effector design and delivery method are entirely up to the designer(s) as long as they are within the design constraints and meet the criteria for the challenge.
• Students should be encouraged to draw upon their personal and cultural experiences throughout the design process.
• Students without physical access to a robot can use a virtual coding environment, such as VEXcode VR or a virtual EV3 coding environment to develop block- or text-based code that can be executed on a virtual robot.

On Dec. 29, 1980, a crawler-transporter moves the space shuttle Columbia to the launch pad before the first shuttle flight, STS-1.

Credit: NASA

How would you transport an 18-million-pound rocket and mobile launch pad three miles and deliver it upright for launch? What kind of grapple, end effector or robotic hand would be best suited for holding and moving such a massive object?

For more than 40 years, the twin crawler-transporters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center slowly traveled the gravel track between the massive Vehicle Assembly Building and the two launch pads at Launch Complex 39. These mammoth vehicles first carried the Apollo Saturn V rockets, and later the space shuttles, before they were launched into space. The technology used to build these huge, reliable crawlers capable of such herculean tasks was deeply rooted in a region where giant machines excavated and extracted veins of coal.

With the future of Space Exploration calling for super-sized exploration vehicles, NASA now needs super crawlers. Upgrades to crawler-transporter 2 in 2016 allowed for an increase in the lifted-load capacity from 12 million to 18 million pounds to support the weight of the mobile launcher and future launch vehicles, including the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

NASA’s Artemis program will return humans to the Moon by sending the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface. A foundational piece of the program is the Space Launch System, a rocket that will allow for human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. SLS will be used in the Artemis program for a series of uncrewed and crewed missions, eventually carrying astronauts to the Moon during the Artemis III mission. NASA plans to continue sending missions to the Moon about once a year after that while also using SLS to launch robotic scientific missions to places like the Moon, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter.

About the engineering design process:

• What did you try that didn’t work out? How many times did you try it?
• What did you do when things didn’t work out like you expected?
• If given access to more parts or sensors, how would it change your design?
• If given more time, what would your next step look like?

About your thinking during the challenge:

• What obstacles did you or your group face in this challenge?
• How did you and/or your group confront these obstacles?
• What was your favorite part of the engineering design process?
• What do you think you have learned from this process you didn’t know before?
• Consider asking students about their knowledge of heavy machinery: Big jobs sometimes require heavy machinery. What heavy machines with wheels or “tracked wheels” have you seen? Answers will vary. Examples could be tractors, combines, backhoes, dump trucks, bulldozers, etc. Ask probing questions to learn more about students’ background knowledge about these machines. Perhaps relatives work with heavy machines or they have a tractor or combine at home for farming.

Points for this challenge will be as follows:

Example scoring rubric:

Students can do further research on sensors included with their robot to improve the design and make their Super Crawler more effective. After researching and practicing programs using sensor capabilities along with rotations and arm movement, the challenge could be repeated with turns or obstacles in the pathway to the target.

• Rockets Lessons
• Rockets Educator Guide
• Excerpts on the history and future of crawler-transporter and crawler-transporter 2 were taken directly from NASA articles and can be found at:
  • Feature Story: "Slow-Motion Giants Carry Shuttle to the Pad"
  • News Article: "New Roller Bearings Tested on Crawler Transporter 2"
• Feature Story: "Slow-Motion Giants Carry Shuttle to the Pad"
• News Article: "New Roller Bearings Tested on Crawler Transporter 2"

This material is based upon work supported by the NASA STEM Educator Professional Development Collaborative at Texas State University under the NASA cooperative agreement award number NNX14AQ30A.