Extrosity

A prototype of an autonomous extraterrestrial mining rover. Built using Minecraft and OpenCV.

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Inspiration

We we're inspired by games such Surviving Mars and No Mans Sky. We also drew inspiration from WolfHacks21, which gave us the idea to create a space related project.

What it does

Extrosity uses a camera and vision processing software to navigate the surface, mapping the local terrain and search and single out certain ore deposits to mine. Extrosity is equipped with two drills one on the bottom and one on the front, which allows Extrosity to mine the ore deposits, and store it inside the body of the rover via a vaccuum function for the bottom of Extrosity, and a shute for the front drill, bot leading to a storage unit inside.

How we built it

We built a model of Extrosity in Minecraft 1.16.5, using CreateMod, ATM-6, and Space-BossTools, to demonstrate the different functions of the rover.

We also created a working prototype of a vision processing system using Python and OpenCV that will allow the rover to search for ore deposits and recognize and map the terrain.

Challenges we ran into

We had trouble setting up a Minecraft server with multiple mods for us to collaborate on. We also had trouble finding the correct colour ranges to put in OpenCV for when searching for ore deposits.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The vision processing program turned out relatively well considering we had no knowledge of OpenCV before the hackathon began.

The Minecraft model also turned out well and we were able to make use of the CreateMod to add more functionality.

What we learned

We learnt how to use different python libraries like numpy and OpenCV.

What's next for Extrocity

We will continue to improve the vision processing code and possibly create a physical prototype of the rover.

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