At the NASA Rover Challenge 2023 these teams will compete against 61 others selected worldwide for the 3-day contest to be held from April 20-22.
11 Indian teams including three high school groups will participate in the prestigious ‘NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge’ (HERC) 2023 in the United States this month. These teams are among 61 others worldwide that will represent India at the international level and will travel to the American agency’s space & rocket centre in Huntsville, Alabama, US to take part in the three day competition from April 20-22.
The HERC Challenge demands teams to design, develop, build, and test human-powered rovers capable of traversing challenging terrain and a task tool for completion of various mission tasks, NASA explained, giving an overview about the competition.
The list of Indian teams participating this year:
| Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh | College/University |
| Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Pilani, Rajasthan | College/University |
| Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, Chennai, Tamil Nadu | College/University |
| KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh | College/University |
| Prayatna Charitable Trust, Ahmedabad, Gujarat | High School |
| Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, Punjab | College/University |
| Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh | College/University |
| Tec Mantra Labs, Kurukshetra, Haryana | High School |
| Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu | College/University |
| Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu | College/University |
| Young Tinker Educational Foundation, Bhubaneswar, Odisha | High School |
Of these, VIT, Vellore, Chennai, HITS, Chennai, BITS Pilani, Rajasthan and Amity Noida, KIET Group of Institutions, Uttar Pradesh featured in the 2022 challenge as well.
Releasing a list of selected teams in October last year(full list here), NASA announced that these teams would be judged based on their ability to design and assemble a rover to traverse a course of approximately half-mile that includes 10 obstacles and 5 tasks with a simulated field of asteroid debris, boulders, erosion ruts, crevasses, and an ancient streambed. “As part of the competition, rover entries are tested to ensure they would fit into a lander storage area, a maximum 5 feet long by 5 feet tall by 5 feet in volume,” NASA said.
The weight and time criteria encourages teams to build their vehicles around its compactness, light weight, high performance, and efficiency. Teams must make real-time decisions on mission objectives – what to attempt or leave behind, driven by limited virtual oxygen supply lasting 8 minutes. The teams earn points on successful completion of these tasks and the one with the highest number of points throughout the project wins the game in each category (high school/college and universities).
Even though Indian teams did not win the overall prize in either category last year, the students are hopeful for international recognition with larger participation this year.
Akanksha Das, a member of one of the participating teams, Young Tinker Educational Foundation, expressing her enthusiasm about the contest, told news agency ANI, “…We sent a proposal to Nasa and they accepted our proposal and we followed all the guidelines. We created a lightweight Rover. In the last edition we got world rank 3, this year we hope to bring 1st position in world rank.”
source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline edited)