NU Wins 1st Place at 2022 NASA BIG IDEA Competition
![](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_webp,q_glossy,ret_img,w_600,h_400/https://coe.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/news/ece/cobra1122a.jpg)
![Alternative rover demonstration](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/northeastern_cobra_highlights.gif)
Northeastern University’s COBRA: Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator rover sidewinds and tumbles during demonstrations at the BIG Idea Forum Nov. 14-17 2022. Credits: NASA
A Northeastern University student team, advised by ECE Assistant Professor Alireza Ramezani, won the prestigious Artemis Award, the top honor at NASA’s 2022 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge for their COBRA: Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator. Their design is snake-inspired and sidewinds and tumbles, which will expand NASA’s lunar and Martian exploration toolkits.
The Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge is an initiative supporting NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s (STMD’s) Game Changing Development Program’s (GCD) efforts to rapidly mature innovative and high-impact capabilities and technologies for infusion in a broad array of future NASA missions.
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