How the drill on the Mars Curiosity rover works
Wow. This is a long video but I guarantee this will be the only time you'll find talk of a drill being anything but boring. This video explains in quite some detail how the drill arm and drilling mechanism of the Mars Curiosity rover works. How it starts digging, how it digs, and how it saves samples for analyzation after retrieval. It all seems rather elementary, but then you remember that this is a robot very far away from earth with the constant possibility of error in which no human can intervene. So if something does go wrong, NASA has to figure out how to basically tell the robot to fix itself with whatever tools it has all by itself on the Martian surface.
Audi wants to make a Lunar rover to win the Google Lunar XPRIZE
I kind of thought this was a joke at first, but after thinking about it some more, I don't see why this would be far-fetched at all. Audi is hoping that their grippy all-wheel-drive Quattro system will help the Part-Time Scientists (yes, that's a real name) successfully complete 3 main tasks to win the Google Lunar XPRIZE. To win, they have to land the rover on the moon, drive 500 meters, and send back hi-res images to Earth.
Audi is serious about helping this team out. You can find out more information about Audi's contribution to the design and function of the rover on this minisite.
