Winners of NASA, Freelancer.com's Astrobee Series include one from India

NASA and Freelancer.com has announced three winners of the latest crowdsourcing contest Astrobee Challenges Series including Amit Biswas from India.

NASA sought candidates to design alternatives for an attachment and orientation arm for Astrobee, the flying robotic assistant that will provide support to astronauts on the space station ISS.

The three selected winners include Nino Wunderlin from South Africa, Myrdal Manzano from the Philippines, and Amit Biswas from India, who entered the competition with his company Triassic Robotics.

Amit Biswas is a 36-year-old software engineer who was excited to participate in the Design a Simple Deployment Mechanism ?contest, a statement said.

"I am very passionate about robotics in general and space robotics is particularly interesting. I was excited to work on this project right from the beginning," Biswas said.

In recent years, NASA has used Freelancer.com to hold several crowdsourcing campaigns in order to find innovative solutions to engineering problems they come across.

The Astrobee Challenges Series is still ongoing as there are nine contests that have not been unlocked yet. A total of USD 25,000 will be awarded when the entire series is completed, with individual prizes ranging from USD 250 to USD 5,000.

The final challenge is set to conclude in September, 2018.

The NASA-Freelancer.com collaboration began in 2015. Since then it has continued to open the door to designers and engineers who are ready to showcase their skills regardless of where they come from.