Ten teams from Polish registered to participate in the international competition of Mars rovers: University Rover Challenge that will take place in the United States on 2 - 4 June. In total, 63 teams from 12 countries want to compete.
University Rover Challenge (URC) is a prestigious international competition of Mars rovers built by students. The event takes place in the American desert in Utah near Mars base analogue MDRS. Student rovers have to perform a number of tasks. They will have to collect soil samples for analysis, gather tools placed on the ground, make repairs in a malfunctioning device, overcome difficult terrain elevation.
Most teams that have entered the competition come from the United States. US will be represented by as many as 16 teams. 11 registered teams come from India. Poland with ten teams is third in the list of registered teams.
Three Polish teams: #next team from Białystok University of Technology, Project Scorpio from Wrocław University of Technology and Legendary Rover Team from Rzeszów University of Technology are titled veterans of the competition. The following teams have also registered to participate in the competition: SKA Robotics from Warsaw University of Technology; Continuum from the University of Wrocław; Nex Robotics from Gdańsk University of Technology; MS Rover Team from Częstochowa University of Technology; University of Warsaw Rover team from the University of Warsaw; Raptors from Lodz University of Technology; Integra from AGH University of Science and Technology.
Nine teams from Bangladesh and eight Canadian teams have also entered the competition. Three teams want to represent Egypt, and one: Turkey, South Korea, Mexico, Nepal, Colombia and Peru.
Teams from Polish universities participate in the competition since 2009. They achieved the first success in 2011, when the rover Magma2 built at Białystok University of Technology won the top of the podium. Students from the Białystok University of Technology took the first place again in 2013 and 2014 with rovers Hyperion and Hyperion 2.
The winners in 2015 were the Legendary Rover Team from Rzeszów University of Technology. The third place went to the team Scorpio from Wrocław University of Technology, and the fourth to the rover #next built by students from Białystok University of Technology. Among the top ten teams, as many as five teams were Polish.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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