Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Australia, Colombia, Canada, the US and the UK will all have their representatives at the ERC. Poland will field teams from a number of Universities of Technology – Wroclaw, Kielce, Warsaw, Czestochowa, Lodz, Poznan – as well as the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, th AGH University of Science and Technology and the University of Technology and Life Sciences in Bydgoszcz.
‘When we came out with the idea of organizing the ERC, we were aware events like this were in high demand, bet we weren’t expecting that many teams to register.’ – says Łukasz Wilczyński, a representative of Mars Society Polska, the ERC 2014 organizer. ‘We are very happy that the roster is really international and has a strong Polish presence – a living proof of the high potential of Polish students and engineers.’
The ERC is a contest for teams of higher education students and recent graduates. Advised by the faculty, the teams must design and build analogues of Mars rovers, which will be presented to the Jury and take on four tasks simulating Mars exploration. Performance during the four field tasks and the jury presentation is scored and the rover with the highest total score is declared the Challenge winner.
As part of the ERC 2014 event schedule, the Da Vinci Science Centre in Podzamcze near Chęciny will also host the conference “Humans in Space”, to be attended by international experts from the space industry, medicine and other sciences, as well as various entrepreneurs. A two day long, open air science popularization festival is also planned on the Challenge grounds – on September 6th and 7th the challenge audience will have a chance to take part in numerous scientific workshops and presentations organized at the nearly Science Picnic
Detailed information about ERC 2014, including a full list of registered teams, is available on the official event website: European Rover Challenge
The event is organized by Mars Society Polska, in cooperation with Planet PR, the Marshal Office of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, and the Regional Science-Technology Centre in Podzamcze near Chęciny. The Polish National Centre for Research and Development, the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, Com Creation, Axis Communications, the Austrian Space Forum and ABM Space Education are event Partners. The Polish Ministry of Economy and the European Commission Representation in Poland have taken honorary patronage over the event.
