Australian Rover Challenge

We are a multidisciplinary team of student engineers, mathematicians and scientists coming together to design a device that is not only fun and complex, but highly relevant to current and near-future missions. Our design takes some inspiration from NASA’s Perseverance rover – namely the rocker-bogie suspension system – while adding our own flairs to the robotic arm and chassis. For many of us, this challenge provides a fantastic opportunity to gain valuable practical experience, whilst also putting a foot in the door for some of us to join Australia’s growing space program.

Of the 4 challenges, we are most looking forward to the Lunar Construction Task, where we will be able to build sturdy structures with our 6 degrees of freedom robotic arm. The precision and strength of the arm will allow us to build these structures without too much difficulty.

If you could take your Rover to an extra-terrestrial body, which one would you choose and why? 

Mars. Compared to the moon, it has stronger gravity, which enables better traction. The atmosphere on Mars means that the temperature variation is less than on the moon, which will put less thermal stress on the rover’s systems, theoretically increasing mission duration. Other major celestial bodies are either too hot or are gas giants – conditions that are unsuitable for our rover.

Offworld Robotics is a student project from UNSW competing with a rocker bogey-based rover complete with Autonomous navigation abilities and lightweight 3d printed design.

This year OWR has an almost entirely new set of members who are excited to prove themselves as engineers, as well as improving on previous teams' work.

OWR has a large software team that is keen to write algorithms to solve complex problems like the Sensor Task, and equally the lunar resources task is especially exciting for our almost all engineering team, since chemical analysis isn't typically within the job description of a mechanical or software engineer.

If you could take your Rover to an extra-terrestrial body, which one would you choose and why? 

If OWR could take the rover to any extra-terrestrial body, we would take it to the Ice moon of Jupiter Europa to explore its water vapor plumes for signs of life.

We’re really excited to see our first ever Rover come together after the year that has been.

For the longest time, our team had worked with each other without even meeting each other (shout out to our old leads Max and Sebastian keeping us together before they graduated) and over time, we’ve grown together a lot as a team and learned so much along the way. Coming out to compete at the ARC with Eve is the best celebration we could have of that journey and our team’s potential going forwards into the future.

Of the four tasks, the Sensor/Semi-autonomous task has been a great opportunity for our team to work with some great pieces of tech to give a little “life” into our Rover. We’re looking forwards to seeing it take its first steps on the big stage - all on its own!

If you could take your Rover to an extra-terrestrial body, which one would you choose and why? 

It would be fun if we could get our Rover on Halley’s Comet next time it whizzes by and hitch a ride ‘round the galaxy!

Monash Nova Rover are a team of university students designing, fabricating, and testing the next generation of Mars rovers right here in Melbourne - and inspiring future generations along the way. As a team who has competed in the University Rover Challenge in the US in the past, the team are looking forward to the changes and challenges the ARC poses. The team is also interested in how the change from a Martian analogue to a Lunar analogue may impact our decisions and competition approach. We're very excited to see a Rover challenge in Australia! 

Of the 4 tasks, the team is very interested to see how the Lunar Construction task goes, as it provides the largest scope for creativity and is the most different task from those we have done at competitions in the past.

If you could take your Rover to an extra-terrestrial body, which one would you choose and why? 

It may be a bit basic, but we would love to see our Rover be sent to Mars to hang out with all the other Rovers there! We're all very excited to see the technological progress and scientific discoveries being made as humanity progresses towards a manned mission to Mars.