In the first day of a three-day event, robots designed by teams from the United States, Canada and Estonia set out from a platform in a two-acre (0.8-hectare) park at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, to search among rolling hills, rocks, trees and a gazebo to find geologic samples.

They operated without human control, with the goal of encouraging advancements in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies, NASA officials said.

“Improving this technology will be a huge boon, not just to NASA and space exploration, but also for countless applications here on Earth,” including industrial purposes, Sam Ortega, program manager of Centennial Challenges, said in a statement.