Teams from across the globe gathered on Friday at the Colorado School of Mines for the Over The Dusty Moon Challenge, a first of its kind competition of innovation.

The Laurentian Lunars of Laurentian University in Canada were crowned the winners.

Teams set out to produce a system that effectively transports fake lunar regolith, or loose rock. The competition brought teams from Australia, Canada, Germany and Poland to the Centennial State, while the Mines’ team represented Colorado, said Kevin Cannon, a geology and space resources professor at the Mines and an organizer of the event. 

Each team had one hour to construct their device and another hour to transport 100kg or just over 220 pounds to another area. Nearly all activities on the moon will require moving dirt or regolith, officials said. 

The competition was judged by field experts from Lockheed Martin, ICON and NASA.

“We are looking at a great variety of design and creativity that’s literally from around the world,” said Lisa May, a judge and NextGen strategy lead at Lockheed Martin. 

Judges like May assessed the teams on safety, whether people needed to intervene, how well the device operated, whether the device was dust tolerant and whether it created a lot of dust.

Martyna Rojczyk, a master’s student at AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, Poland, said the competition pushed her lab to the limit and took months of preparation.

“Designing and implementing something like this does not happen overnight. It took us countless hours to get where we are today,” Rojczyk said. 

Nick Barnett, a Ph.D. student at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the competition presented great challenges to many teams, including their own. The best part of the competition was the interaction with the judges and other teams.

“You build friendships and contacts that’ll last a lifetime,” Barnett said. “With these people, it could be next week or 10 years time. But you might need to call on someone you met here for help.”

More important, each participant was able to get real-world experience, which is crucial, said Cannon.

“This is a real opportunity to get their hands dirty and build a system,” Cannon said. “It’s just really valuable experience to be a part of these competitions.”