The UIU Mars Rover team from United International University (UIU) has won the first place in Asia for the third time in a row at the University Rover Challenge (URC) 2024, organised by the Mars Society.
The competition was held from May 29 to June 1 at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Hanksville, Utah in the United States, according to a press release.
The UIU Mars Rover Team also came in first in Asia in 2022 and 2023 at the competition.
During the three-day final, the teams performed four missions including science exploration, autonomous navigation, extreme terrain traversal and Equipment servicing missions to demonstrate the capabilities of their rover and operation skills. UIU Mars Rover successfully completed all four missions and represented the university and Bangladesh with pride.
UIU Mars Rover team also secured the fifth place out of all 38 finalists with a score of 304.25 and first among the Asian teams in URC 2024. In addition to UIU, seven other universities from the US and one university from Poland and Canada made it into the top 10.
A total of 38 teams from 15 different countries, including the US, Poland, India, Bangladesh, Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Turkey competed in the competition’s grand finale, rad the release.
The team was supervised by Prof Dr. Salekul Islam from the UIU’s Department of CSE and mentored by Abid Hossain, lecturer at Department of CSE.
A team of 10 members from the UIU Robotics Club took part in the competition. The student lead is Md Yasin from CSE department. The other subteams are led by Sakib Mahmud Saad (Management SubTeam Lead), Bayzid Uddin Miah (Mechanical SubTeam Lead), Shah Mehrab Hossain Fahim (Electrical SubTeam Lead), Sheikh Shakib Hossain (Software SubTeam Lead), Shorower Hossain (Communication SubTeam Lead) and Suraia Afroz Maria (Science SubTeam Lead).
This year, two teams represented Bangladesh on the international stage. The UIU Mars Rover Team and the BRACU Mangal-Tari team from BRAC University participated in the final round of URC 2024.
In the final of the competition, the AGH Space Systems team from AGH University of Krakow, Poland became the champion with a score of 392.76.
