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.
The tasks, during the ERC competition in Podzamcze near Chęciny, among others involved navigating the rover to the locations given by sets of coordinates, without the use of a camera, gathering samples of soil and obtaining a spare part from storage and transporting it to a repair site.
As a result of the competition the winners became:
1st place: Scorpio Team from Wroclaw University of Technology (PL)
2nd place: Impuls Team from Kielce University of Technology (PL)
3rd place: Lunar and Mars Rover Team from Cairo University (Egypt)
Special Bonus Award: Robocol Team, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
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.
The official event website: European Rover Challenge
Photos © Anna Karahan