York team sole Canadian representative at event
TORONTO, June 2, 2009 -- A team of York science and engineering students has placed first in the 2009 University Rover Challenge in Hanksville, Utah.
The York University Rover Team (YURT) competed in the challenge, which took place at the Mars Desert Research Station in a remote part of the Utah desert from May 28 to 30.
The team improved on its 2008 third-place finish with a score of 289 points, which was more than double that of second-place contestants from Utah's Brigham Young University.
Eight teams of postsecondary students from North America and Europe participated, with YURT as the sole Canadian competitor.
The annual event sees student teams design and build stand-alone mobile units that are controlled by wireless remote and capable of withstanding the harsh conditions on Mars. The competition is hosted by a group of space science and Mars enthusiasts known as the Mars Society. Each year, the tasks the rover must complete are different and the competing teams must build a new Mars rover prototype to face the challenges posed by the Mars Society.
"Although many of the tasks for 2009 were similar to those in 2008, the requirements and task courses were much more difficult this year," said Kevin Sloan, director of the University Rover Challenge. "Despite how hard we made things for these teams, they found ways to accomplish amazing feats. All of the judges and I were extremely impressed at what these students have done. Now the hard job for the judges is to devise even harder tasks for the 2010 URC."
The rover designs simulate explorer units that would be operated by astronauts on, or orbiting around Mars. The competition takes place in the desert of southern Utah where conditions are harsh and each rover is expected to withstand environmental conditions that include airborne dust and temperatures that can reach 40°C. This year's competition saw a range of harsh weather, which included dust storms and an electrical storm that temporarily halted the upload of competition reports to the Mars Society Web page.
The competition challenged teams to simulate commands to a rover on the Martian terrain. Tasks included finding and repairing a loose equipment panel; locating coordinates and communicating them back to the team; completing a survey for life using geophysical and biological assays; and an emergency navigation task that required the rovers to deliver a critical container to a distressed astronaut in the field. The YURT team scored high marks in the survey task and achieved a perfect score in the emergency navigation task.
Many of the teams spent the better part of the last year designing, building and testing their prototypes. In addition to the prototype construction, the teams were also required to submit their design plans, raise funds to support their entry and submit final budgets for the cost of their rover prototypes.
Brigham Young University placed second and the University of Nevada, Reno finished in third place.
The York team won transportation, lodging and admission for five team members to the
12th Annual International Mars Society Convention in Washington, DC this summer, as well as a cash prize.
York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as more than 200,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 11 faculties and 26 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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Media contact:
Killeen Kelly, Media Relations, York University, 416 736 2100 x22938 / killeenk@yorku.ca
