Danielle Wood, director of the Space Enabled research group and assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab and in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has been named as the new principal investigator (PI) for the Zero Robotics program at MIT. 

Founded over a decade ago by MIT’s Alvar Saenz-Otero, Jacob Katz and David Miller and co-led by a team from Innovation Learning Center and Aurora Flight Sciences, Zero Robotics is an educational program that hosts tournaments to teach middle and high school students to write code and program with robots on the International Space Station (ISS). The Zero Robotics program originally allowed students to use robotics called SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites); this system was developed by the MIT Space Systems Laboratory, in conjunction with NASA, DARPA, and Aurora Flight Sciences, to provide a safe and reusable zero gravity platform to test sensor, control, and autonomy technologies for use in satellites.

In the program’s first decade, Zero Robotics tournaments helped almost 20,000 students from 30 US states and 18 countries learn to code on the SPHERES platform, providing opportunities to contribute to real ISS missions and work with mentors to design, implement, and operate robots. This has enabled Zero Robotics to act as a bridge between students and leaders in the space industry—scientists, engineers, and other professionals at the forefront of science and engineering—and inspire students to become leaders and mentors themselves. 

While the SPHERES program retired from the ISS in 2019, Dr. Wood and the Zero Robotics leadership team are working with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space to access NASA’s new Astrobee robotic system. Dr. Wood has lead the Zero Robotics team to win two grants from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space to work with its technology development and educational programs. The Zero Robotics team has also collaborated with the Navajo Technical University in New Mexico and California State University, Long Beach to secure a $1.18 million grant from NASA. This grant was awarded for a three-year collaboration to increase participation of Native and Hispanic students in STEM education, including Zero Robotics.

With this new funding, the Zero Robotics program will fully restart in 2022 with MIT's contributions led by Dr. Wood. In preparation, MIT, Innovation Learning Center, California State University Long Beach and Aurora Flight Sciences and the Aerospace Corporation collaborated to host a session of the Zero Robotics program this past summer. 

We’re also excited to announce that the Media Lab and MIT Aero/Astro will host the Boston premiere of Zero Gravity, as part of the 2021 Boston Film Festival. A documentary by filmmaker Thomas Verrette, the film follows a cohort of students from Campbell Middle School, near San Jose, California, as they compete in the 2017 Zero Robotics tournament.