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University of Waterloo URC Mars Rover

Delta Elevator was a proud sponsor of the 2019 University of Waterloo’s entry in the annual University Rover Challenge (URC). The URC is an annual competition between university student teams from around the world who design and build a Mars rover robot. The rovers are put through a series of tests in the desert of southern Utah in the hopes that the design and development efforts might ultimately contribute to the further exploration of the Red Planet. In the more immediate term, it provides a friendly but challenging opportunity to design a fully functional robot which exceeds a challenging standard.

Delta has long been a supporter of the UW co-operative education program and have partnered with some of our past co-ops on other projects. We were pleased to lend support to the 2019 UW Robotics team. Designing, building, installing and maintaining elevators requires a cross-functional team and we saw parallels in the rover team which pulled together over 55 students from four different faculties. The students organized themselves into five groups: mechanical, electrical, software, science and business. Collectively, they designed, built and programmed the rover while gaining the opportunity to compete in the competition. The UW Team earned the opportunity to compete for the third straight year with their highest ever Systems Acceptance Review score and were optimistic as they prepared for the competition as one of only five Canadian teams.

The Rover made an appearance at one of Delta’s staff barbecues. It featured technology that in many ways is very similar to Delta’s elevators even if in a very different application. Delta employees had opportunity to manipulate the robotic arm with a joystick controller while enjoying their food. The competition itself brought a disappointing result but still taught some valuable lessons. The Rover experienced complete failure on multiple occasions, suffering from reliability issues with electrical systems including USB hubs and motor controller power connectors. The team can build on these lessons and take pride in their best ever finish in the Science Task. From a technical perspective, this was UWs best entry to date and the team looks to grow from the 2019 experience as it seeks the opportunity to compete again in 2020. Good luck to the team!

For more information about the competition see the URC news page: University Rover ChallengeOpen in New Window