ITU Rover Team Received 2 Awards from Europe’s Biggest Space and Robotics Competition

ITU Rover Team, which works on planetary exploration robots, won the "Best Robot Arm" award in addition to the silver medal in the general ranking in the European Rover Challenge competition, in which they participated with their 5th generation rover, and achieved the best international ranking ever received by Turkish rover teams.

Kielce University of Technology hosted the European Rover Challenge, Europe's biggest international space and robotics competition held in Poland every year, between 10-12 September this year.

A total of 58 teams from 15 countries, including Germany, Italy, Poland and Switzerland, participated in the competition, and the rover designed by ITU Rover Team students attracted great attention. Our team won two awards in the competition and proudly waved the Turkish flag on the podium.

Our goal is gold medal

ITU Rover Team Captain and Physics Engineering Department 3rd year student Burak Aydın expressed that after almost two years of longing for face-to-face competitions due to the pandemic, it is a great source of motivation for his team to obtain such an achievement in the first competition they attended. Stating that his team consists of 48 students studying in different faculties of engineering, science and architecture, Aydın said, he was happy to be a part of a family like the ITU Rover Team, which goes from strength to strength and moves forward every year, while also studying at Turkey's most established technical university.

The team captain summarized the ERC process as follows: “Our vehicle can move on its own on rough terrain and can do everything an astronaut needs to do outside a spaceship with the help of a robot arm. In line with the requirements of the competitions we participate in, we record the capabilities of our vehicle on video and send it to the competition. After the qualifiers, the finalists are determined and invited to the competition. The competition takes place in mid-September. In this year's competition, besides being selected as the best robot arm of the competition, we also came second in the general ranking. Our next competition will be the University Rover Challenge, which will take place in June, and we will strive for the first place there.”

Aydın expressed his gratitude to the ITU Rectorate, whose support they always felt, and to AXA Insurance, the value partner of the team, and emphasized the importance of the support they received in order to be able to follow and adapt to the latest technologies in the robotics sector, as well as take bigger steps towards their goals while the achievements of the team and Turkish engineering are being heard on international platforms.

We congratulate our team who represents our country and our university in the international arena and wish them continued success.

What is a Rover?

A rover is a prototype space exploration vehicle designed to withstand harsh terrain conditions on the surface of a planet or any other celestial body, to carry out necessary tasks and to deliver the data it obtains to scientists. Rovers fall under the class of unmanned land vehicles and contain robotic arms, motion systems, high-resolution cameras and sensors. Today, rovers are actively deployed on the surface of Mars and the Moon. Rovers are also used in dealing with natural disasters, in the defense industry, mining, health and nuclear fields.

ITU Rover Team

ITU Rover Team is a team of 46 experienced, curious and hardworking students from various faculties, who came together in 2016 at the ITU Robotics Club, formerly called ARIGE. The team had previously won the third place and the "Science Special Award" in the University Rover Challenge, of which NASA is the biggest supporter. The experienced team, advancing in line with Turkey's space goals, forms a school for Turkish youth with its inspiring achievements, and aims to continue the technological superiority that our country has proven in UCAV (Unmanned combat aerial vehicle) technologies in rover technologies.