e4-Rover Mars Challenge at EclipseCon

Do you have what it takes to be a rocket scientist? EclipseCon 2010 will be your opportunity to play with the top guns. The Eclipse Foundation, in collaboration with NASA JPL, are organizing the e4-Rover Mars Challenge. EclipseCon attendees will participate in a contest to create the very best robotic control system to drive a robot across a prototypical Mars landscape. The grand prize winner will receive an opportunity to visit the NASA robotics lab in Los Angeles, CA.

Robots and Eclipse

Jeff Norris from the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab will be featured as the keynote speaker at EclipseCon 2010. Jeff will present how NASA has used Eclipse technology to build a software platform for planning and controlling the Mars and Lunar rover missions. Building on the theme of robotics and Eclipse, the e4-Rover Mars Challenge highlights how developers can use Eclipse e4 to build client software to control a Lego Mindstorm robot. Participants will use an e4 client to control a live LEGO Mindstorm robot through a series of tasks to compete for points. Participants will be encouraged to extend and customize the e4 client to improve the control of the robot and increase their chances of collecting more points.

e4 is the next generation of Eclipse platform focused on making it easier to build sophisticated client applications. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to develop with e4, but e4 certainly simplifies the life of a rocket scientist!

EclipseCon is the annual Eclipse community conference to be held March 22-25 in Santa Clara, CA. Contest details will be available online before the start of the conference.