Student-built Mars Rover in international competition

Mechanical Engineering student Filip Szczebak reports from the World Finals of the European Rover Challenge 2023.

"Between 11^th and 17^th of September, the newly formed Imperial Planetary Robotics Lab team (part of the Imperial College Space Society) competed in the World Finals of the European Rover Challenge 2023 as the only team representing the UK.

The competition involves designing and building a remotely controlled semi-autonomous rover that has to perform a number of tasks mimicking a real planetary exploration mission, on a specially designed Mars Yard in Kielce, Poland.

The team has scored 1^st in one of the 4 major competition challenges and 11^th out of 25 teams globally, beating many larger teams with many more years of experience.

A large part of the group consisted of current and former Mechanical Engineering students, who were supported in their travel by the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The team owes the success largely to a significant intake of coffee and a pragmatic design approach, having aimed to create the simplest possible platform that could compete. This not only allowed it to fit within the very tight budget and timeline, but also led to some unseen design decisions, such as a wooden suspension (to minimise weight, cost and manufacturing complexity) and employed windscreen wiper motors to drive the rover.

Next, the team plans to analyse the lessons learned from the competition and return stronger in their second year of competing in 2024!"

The team is currently looking for sponsors; get in touch to find out more at their mailbox imperialplanetaryroboticslab[@]gmail.com or via their Instagram account @ic_space_society.