Manipal: Mars Rover Manipal won the inaugural edition of the Indian Rover Challenge held at Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, between January 6 and 8.

According to a press release issued by the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (deemed to be university), the 22-member inter-disciplinary student project team of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) initiated in October 2014 had two earlier laudable performances in international competitions.

The team participated in the 2016 and 2017 editions of the University Rover Challenge at Mars Desert Research Station, Utah, U.S. They finished 13th in a field of 63 teams in the 2016 competition and gave a much better performance in 2017 finishing 8th out of 82 teams from across the world. The team is currently designing a Rover to compete at the University Rover Challenge 2018 to be held at Utah in June.

The MIT team, with members from various branches of engineering such as Electronics and Communications, Electricals and Electronics, Mechanical, Computer Science, Mechatronics and Biotechnology, on winning the inaugural edition of the Indian Rover Challenge at Vellore, was awarded a cash prize of 40,000.

The competition had various tasks such as Assistance, Equipment Servicing, Science and Sample Retrieval, Presentation and a Surprise Task that the team managed to clear with distinction.

They scored 616 points out of a maximum of 730 and were 129 points ahead of the second place winners. The competition featured teams from across India and Bangladesh too.