MANIPAL: The second edition of the Indian Rover Challenge (IRC) was organised by Manipal Institute of Technology’s (MIT) rover design team ‘Mars Rover Manipal’ from January 9 to 12.
The IRC is the only competition of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region; it is backed by The Mars Society, USA and is a part of the Rover Challenge series. Apart from the IRC, there are three competitions which are a part of the Rover Challenge Series: University Rover Challenge in Utah, European Rover Challenge in Poland, and the Canadian International Rover Challenge. The competition began in India in January 2018 and was held at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore.
This edition of the IRC had 10 teams participating from three different countries – Poland, Bangladesh, and India. 32 teams had registered when the rulebook was released in June which included teams from Poland, Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh, and India. Out of these, 18 teams were shortlisted and given an opportunity to compete. They had around five months to build their rover, and the teams had to complete four tasks over three days in order to win. They were: Extreme Retrieval and Delivery, Autonomous Transversal, Equipment Servicing, and Science Cache.
The first place was bagged by Team Anveshak, IIT Madras. AGH Space Systems from Poland came second while IUT Mars Rover came third. The University of Warsaw deserves a special mention for building a new rover within one day when their rover was detained in customs and could not arrive in time for the tournament.