The Mars rover Scorpio constructed by students of the Off-Road Scientific Club of Wrocław University of Science and Technology is ready for the University Rover Challenge – an international competition of these student structures, organized in the desert of Utah, in the USA.
The Off-Road Science Club is one of 36 teams from 10 countries that qualified for the competition – out of 99 applicants from around the world.
The latest work of Wrocław students weighs 47 kg, can move at a maximum speed of 20 km / h and, most importantly, can cope with an uneven surface, it can lift and screw whatever it needs, and even write a few words on the keyboard.
Compared to the previous rovers, the “seventh” Scorpio is lighter, but at the same time larger and more stable. The designers improved the stiffness of the manipulator, which was a problem in the previous version of the rover. They used aluminum and composites as the main construction materials, and some of the elements were printed from plastics on 3D printers.
