Team from Wrocław won international rover competition
The team from Wrocław University of Technology with the rover Scorpio won the first edition of the international competition European Rover Challenge.
The European Rover Challenge (ERC) is a competition for students, graduates and faculty members. Participating teams design and build Mars rovers. Two-day event was held in Podzamcze Chęcińskie near Kielce. Ten teams from Poland, Egypt, India and Colombia competed.
The winning team from Wrocław University of Technology competed with the robot Scorpio. The prizes for the winners included a check for one thousand dollars.
The team already has a lot of experience, having already competed four times in competitions of Mars rovers, including the University Rover Challenge in the U.S. The way to the recent victory, however, was not easy.
Although they were the first to start, they failed to score any points in the first competition because of problems with the compass and communication. They filed an appeal, which the judges accepted. The second pass was successful and gave the team so much confidence that they quickly jumped to the lead. In subsequent competitions they performed without problems.
"We have finally profited from the whole year of hard work. Now we have to improve our rover. The competition has revealed several shortcomings. We will involve new team members to show some of its new applications" - team member Jędrzej Mountain told PAP after the announcement of results.
He stressed that one of the elements that ensures success in the competition is a good team, which went through several ordeals. "Our success is not the results of us being geniuses, but being a good team" - explained Górski.
Second place went to the team "Impuls" from Kielce University of Technology. The team from the University of Cairo "Lunar and Mars Rover Team" ranked third.
Organizers of the first edition of the rover competition prepared a special track, similar to the surface of Mars. Robots performed tasks in three spectacular off-road competitions: they had to reach a designated place using only GPS and compass, cross the track in the shortest possible time, take a soil sample.
While performing the tasks, team members do not see their rovers and control them remotely, just like the real Mars rovers. Each machine is equipped with a camera, so the players can see everything and appropriately control the rover.
In 2015, another edition of the European Rover Challenge will be held in the same place in Poland. The event is organized Mars Society Poland in cooperation with the agency Planet PR, Świętokrzyskie Marshal\'s Office and the Regional Science-Technology Centre in Podzamcze Chęcińskie.
The competition is the European version of the prestigious competition University Rover Challenge (URC), held annually in the desert of Utah in the United States. In the last two editions, the team from Białystok University of Technology took the first place with the rovers Hyperion and Hyperion. Students from Białystok also won the competition in 2011 with the rover Magma2.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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