URC News
Announcing the URC2019 Webinar Series, Hosted by Protocase
We are excited to announce a new webinar series for 2019, hosted by our good friends at Protocase! The series will kick off with 5 topics over the coming weeks, and we hope to offer more topics in the weeks and months to come. Additional details for webinars will be updated for each of the sessions (they will not all be held at the same time). Teams will be required to register for each webinar; due to hosting constraints each team will only be able to join from one computer. Registration details will be sent directly to each Student Team Lead. January 23, 11am MST (UTC-7) - Intro to Working with Protocase: How to Use Protocase’s Custom Manufacturing Services An overview for teams who are taking advantage of the annual URC sponsorship offer from Protocase. This webinar will explain our capabilities as a custom manufacturer of enclosures, parts and components for both sheet metal and CNC machining. Our priority is to make sure your orders are processed smoothly so that they can be built in 2-3 days, in order to give you as much time as possible to test your rover. We will also share some key design guidelines to keep in mind when designing and submitting your order. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the webinar. January 30, 10am MST (UTC-7) - Project Management Essentials, Featuring Honeybee Robotics David Smyth, the Director of Flight Software for Honeybee Robotics, will lead this webinar designed to help your team be successful by applying project management best practices throughout the system development life cycle. Learn how to use internal milestones to keep your team driven and on schedule, and how a rigorous testing and evaluation plan can be the key to your team's success. Leverage lessons learned from NASA and other space industry leaders to better understand system failures and how to mitigate their occurrence (or recurrence!). February 8, Time TBD - Preparing for the System Acceptance Review and Q&A Updates with URC Judges Join URC judges for a discussion of the System Acceptance Review process. This is your opportunity to hear the judges discuss what they are looking for when evaluating reports and videos during this down-selection milestone. Judges will also be providing an update on key questions and answers that have been posted since the initial release of the URC2019 rules in September, 2018. Date TBD - URC2018 Failure Logging Results The desert of southern Utah is a challenging environment unlike any campus lab, and nothing experiences this lesson quite like a URC rover! In 2018 URC and Protocase worked closely with teams to document the highs and lows of system performance, documenting the most common failure modes from the competition. Join us for a discussion of the results so that your rover can be prepared long before it gets its first taste of the analog-Martian soil. Date TBD - Ask an Expert Stay tuned for more details! |
International Field of Teams Ready for URC2019
84 teams of college students representing 13 countries are set to take on the 2019 University Rover Challenge. Teams will spend the academic year designing and fabricating prototype next-generation rovers that could one day support astronauts on the surface of Mars.
The next major milestone for teams is the Preliminary Design Review, which requires teams to submit a report to judges by November 30. A System Acceptance Review milestone in March will down-select to the top 36 teams who will compete from May 30 - June 1, 2019 at the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah.
The full list of URC2019 teams appears on the URC Team Info page.
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Protocase Returns as Sponsor for 2019 University Rover Challenge
The Mars Society is proud to welcome Protocase back as a major sponsor of the world-renowned University Rover Challenge!
More than 12,000 engineers and designers in science and innovation around the world depend on Protocase for custom-manufacturing electronic enclosures, sheet metal parts, machined parts and components in two to three days, with no minimum orders.
Instead of using critical design time and effort taking off-the-shelf enclosures, parts and components and modifying them fit your Mars Rover design, all teams registered in the 2019 University Rover Challenge can harness Protocase's state-of-the-art manufacturing to have exactly what they need custom fabricated.
URC2019 Protocase Sponsorship
 The Protocase Sponsorship will be similar to the sponsorship offered in previous years:
Check out The Journey of the University Rover Challenge, which documents the experience of URC teams who worked with Protocase.
Learn more about Protocase's custom sheet metal fabrication and CNC Machining.  How Teams Can Work With Protocase Once a team is registered for the 2019 University Rover Challenge, team leads or other team members can email info@protocase.com to be connected with their designated Protocase account manager. Protocase will be holding a webinar in early 2019. This webinar is an important step for all teams, as it will feature an overview of Protocase's manufacturing processes and important design guidelines for sheet metal fabrication and CNC machining. There will be an opportunity to ask questions as well.
Details on the webinar will be shared with all registered teams by URC staff within a few weeks. |
Registration Now Open for URC2019
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2019 University Rover Challenge Rules Released
The 2019 University Rover Challenge has officially begun with the release of the updated rules! Registration for the 2019 competition will open in late September, 2018, and will close on November 2, 2018. All registered teams will be required to submit a Preliminary Design Review package by November 30, 2018, and a System Acceptance Review milestone will follow in March, 2019. The top 36 teams will be selected to compete in the 2019 University Rover Challenge Finals, held May 30 - June 1, 2019 at the renowned Mars Desert Research Station. Teams and rover will compete in 4 missions in 2019: the Science Mission, Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Mission, Equipment Servicing Mission, and Autonomous Traversal Mission. Despite similarities to the 2018 competition, there are several small changes throughout the rules, so teams are encouraged to review the rules closely and not rely on knowledge of the 2018 rules! With the early milestones for URC2019, prospective teams are encouraged to start work as soon as possible! Good luck to all of the teams! |
University Rover Challenge Title Returns to Poland
The University Rover Challenge (URC) awarded the title of World’s Top Mars Rover to the PCz Rover Team from the Czestochowa University of Technology in Poland on June 2. The 2018 rendition of URC hosted 35 rovers and more than 500 students from ten countries at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah. URC is an annual competition which asks college students to design and build the world’s best Mars rover. The defending champions from 2017, the Mars Rover Design
Team from the Missouri University of Science & Technology in the United
States, turned in an impressive performance, finishing in second place. This marks the third time the team has
finished on the podium at URC. The
IMPULS team from the Kielce University of Technology in Poland finished close
behind in third place to round out the podium.
The international robotics competition for college students, which is part of the Mars Society’s Rover Challenge Series, featured an elite field of teams vying to build the world’s best student-designed Mars rover. A record 95 teams from 12 countries took part in URC2018. Following a rigorous two-stage down-selection process 36 teams were invited to the field competition at MDRS. 35 teams from ten countries arrived with their rovers ready for the exciting challenges in the Utah desert. For its twelfth year URC continued the same tasks as in
previous years (Sample Cache Task, Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task,
Equipment Servicing Task, and the Autonomous Traversal Task), but challenged
teams with harder versions of several. The
most exciting task of 2018 proved to be the Equipment Servicing Task, which
featured a custom lander designed and built by URC sponsor Protocase.
Teams and their rovers were required to load a canister into the lander,
and conduct a series of complex procedures required to “launch” this lander from
Mars back to Earth.
 The PCz Rover Team capped their victory with a dramatic
performance late Saturday on the Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task, earning
the only perfect score of the competition in that task. During this task rovers were required to
navigate across the arduous terrain surrounding MDRS to retrieve tools and
deliver them to simulated astronauts in the field. The last objective of the task required teams
to ascend a steep and narrow ridgeline, bordered by harrowing drops on either
side, to deliver a tool to the final astronaut.
This objective had already sent three previous teams either rolling or
sliding off the side of the ridgeline to varying degrees of rover damage. PCz’s unique frame began to slip as it neared
the astronaut, but came to a rest with just inches to spare, allowing them to
deploy the required tool and securing their championship performance.
 More than 1000 students were involved in URC projects at their local universities during the 2017-18 academic year. The rovers they built reflected the dedication, passion, and ingenuity of the student teams, a point that was not lost on the judges and industry representatives attending the event. The scores for all teams can be found at http://urc.marssociety.org/home/about-urc/urc2018-scores. For more information, visit URC online at: http://urc.marssociety.org, on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/universityroverchallenge), and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/URConMars). |
Schedules, Scores, and the EST Preview
A draft of the detailed task schedule for teams has now been posted to the URC2018 Schedule page. The URC2018 Scores page has now been updated with the System Acceptance Review scores, the first 100 possible points of the competition! Protocase and URC are excited to provide this sneak peak of the URC2018 Equipment Servicing Task: |
Announcing the URC Meet & Greet Hosted by Protocase, and Rover Rodeo
We are excited to announce the URC Meet & Greet Hosted by Protocase, and Rover Rodeo, as part of URC2018! Wednesday, May 30, 2018
 URC Meet and Greet Hosted by Protocase Please join URC and Protocase for a fun event to kick everything off on Wednesday, May 30, 5:00pm - 8:00pm, following the Check-In period. Enjoy a BBQ provided by Duke's Slickrock & Grill, and meet with industry representatives from Honeybee Robotics and Microsoft (bring your resumes!). This event will take place at the Hanksville Emergency Services building. Rover Rodeo Get ready for the competition, and get your rover's "shake-down" testing completed at this new and exciting event! URC will be taking over the arena in Hanksville, located next to the Emergency Services building, and turning it over to the rovers. The space will be available to teams to conduct testing starting at 4:00pm. At 6:30pm we will begin a series of informal and fun races on a simple obstacle course. Don't worry about any 1 meter drops here - the real rover-breaking competition starts the next day! A few notes about the Rover Rodeo:
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URC2018 Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task - Course Posted
The judges have released the course map and detailed instructions for the URC2018 Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task:  |
36 Teams Advance to URC2018 Finals
From a record field of 95 teams, the University Rover Challenge (URC) has announced the 36 teams from 10 countries who have been selected to compete May 31 - June 2 at the Mars Desert Research Station. See the video announcement below, thanks to Protocase! Teams previously passed a Preliminary Design Review milestone, and most recently passed an extremely competitive System Acceptance Review milestone. Rovers competing at the URC finals will face four extremely difficult tasks for their Mars rovers: the Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task, the Equipment Servicing Task, the Autonomous Traversal Task, and the Science Cache Task. These events challenge teams to design and build highly capable robotic systems able to traverse extreme and aggressive terrain, perform maintenance on critical field equipment, and conduct meaningful field science. Now in its 12th year, URC has challenged hundreds of teams and thousands of students through this unique multi-disciplinary educational event. In recent years URC's parent organization, the Mars Society, has formed the Rover Challenge Series, which features similar competitions around the world aimed at developing the next generation of talented and ambitious leaders in engineering, science, and space exploration. |
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