The College of DuPage Robotics Team earned first place in berm construction at NASA's 2026 Lunabotics Competition.

"This is an incredible achievement for our students," said COD Assistant Physics Professor Eric Meloche. "The team built the best, most efficient and most reliable robot at the competition."

NASA's annual Lunabotics Challenge is a two-semester competition in which college and university students design, build and test prototype lunar construction robots using NASA systems engineering principles. The 2026 competition began last September, with teams submitting project plans, engineering reports and robot specifications.

Judges selected 47 teams to advance to the qualifying round at the University of Central Florida's Exolith Lab in Orlando, where robots completed a series of performance tests.

Read more about the competition.