Since 2006
The University Rover Challenge
The University Rover Challenge (URC) is the world's premier robotics competition for college students. Held annually in the desert of southern Utah in the United States, the competition challenges student teams to design and manufacture rovers that are tested in their ability to explore a Martian environment. With competitions held annually every summer since 2006, URC has grown to consistently draw an international field of the most talented and promising students around the world.
Check our 2026 URC Systems Acceptance Review!
We are incredibly proud to announce that Monash Nova Rover placed 2nd out of 116 teams from 18 different countries at the 2026 University Rover Challenge!
Our team achieved a final score of 412.41 points, the highest score ever achieved by Nova Rover at URC.
We also achieved a perfect score of 100 points in the Science Task and earned the highest Autonomous Task score of the competition with 86 points!
COMPETITION TASKS
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Extreme Retrieval and Delivery
To assist astronauts in the field, rovers will be required to find, pick up, and deliver objects all while traversing terrain of increasing difficulty. The terrain includes soft sandy areas, gravel, rough stony areas, rock and boulder fields, vertical drops and steep loosely consolidated slopes. In this mission, the rover may be assisted by a drone.
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Equipment Servicing
Rovers shall be required to perform several dexterous operations on a mock-up lander. The Equipment Servicing Mission will involve delivering a cached science sample to a lander and performing maintenance on the lander.
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Autonomous Navigation
Rovers will autonomously navigate to multiple target locations, including two GNSS-only waypoints, three AR-tagged posts, and two unmarked ground objects. Navigation may be completed in any order. A high-accuracy GNSS coordinate will be provided at the start gate as a reference, and differential GNSS can be employed to improve positioning accuracy.
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Science Mission
Rovers collect samples chosen by the team at sites selected in the field, perform basic science evaluation of these samples with onboard instrumentation, and store at least one sample as a cache. Sites shall be analysed for their likelihood to support microbial life with at least one life detection method.
