Space Elevator Games Beaming Competition Nov 2 to Nov 6, 2009

The Space Elevator Games beaming competition will be held Nov 2nd to Nov 6th, 2009

The power beaming games are now scheduled to be held on the week of 11/2 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base near Mojave, CA.

The first two days of the week will be dedicated to set-up, testing, and calibrations, and the first competitive climb will take place on Wednesday, 11/4.

Each team will get one 45-minute climb window per day, and we will repeat the process over 3 days to make sure each team can achieve the best score they are capable of.

There are three teams that will be competing

USST (University of Saskatchwan) is our university student team (Team Captain is Bill Voss, also from Seattle, and the students are from the town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), except that nothing about it is typical of a student team – they are organized, highly professional, calm and collected – and have outperformed all other teams in all previous competitions so far. USST is the most experienced team at the games, having participated in all challenges since 2005.

Lasermotive (LM) is our “industry” team, led by long time laser industry expert Dr. Jordin Kare, and really almost doing this as a hobby. They are based in Seattle, and one look at their sponsor list makes it clear that they are a force to be reckoned with. Laser motive is on its second year at the games, having made their debut in 2007.

Kansas City Space Pirates (KCSP) are our robotic-club hobbyists, except (guess what…) nothing about them says “amateur”. Their engineering is superb, they have recruited a top-notch panel of consultants, they are consistently the most prepared team, perform the most detailed testings and rehearsals, and their attention to detail is unmatched. Team Captain and chief engineer is Brian Turner, and they are based in Kansas City, MO. This is KCSP’s third appearance at the games.