Rover Challenge

An eight-member team consisting of seven engineering students and faculty advisor and dean, (student affairs) Vinnie Mathur from Galgotias University recently visited NASA at Huntsville, Alabama, US, to participate in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge. The team participated in the competition after being awarded the first prize at the national finale of the competition.
The Rover Challenge requires students to design, construct, test and race human-powered rovers through an obstacle course simulating the terrain potentially found on distant planets, asteroids or moons. Teams compete to finish an obstacle race in the fastest time, vying for prizes in various categories.
As part of the competition, students from Galgotias presented a moon buggy, a lunar roving vehicle created by them at the university workshop under the guidance of faculty members. Over 94 teams from across the globe participated in the contest. Team Galgotia finished the race in 24 minutes and 45 seconds to bag the 30th spot at the international finale.
The Rover Challenge required students to design, construct, test and race human-powered rovers through an obstacle course simulating a terrain, similar to what is found on distant planets, asteroids or moons. The teams then competed to finish the three quarter mile obstacle race.
The moon buggy created by the students from Galgotia was made from the alloy of steel known as chrome moly (i.e.chromium and molybdenum) which is rarely available in India and had to be imported from Dubai. Apart from that, the frame had rear and front shock absorbers with springs below the driver's seat to prevent possible damage to the frame. The team (moonbuggy) had 18 gear speed ratios that allowed the team to obtain a wide range of speed-torque combinations depending on the terrain on which they drove.
Team Galgotias was the only group who used solid tyres rather than plastics or dunlop foam tyres as per NASA guidelines of not using pneumatic tyres.In line with NASA guidelines, the team manufactured solid tyres in a private rubber factory, based on a unique formula to make the rubber robust yet elastic, rather than using plastics or dunlop foam. This was done to avoid explosion due to the pressure difference on another planet surface.