Presentation of European Rover Challenge 2018 project. It's the fourth edition of the biggest open-air space and robotics event in Europe. 14-16th of September. More at www.roverchallenge.eu

1. Giant leap to space
and robotics career

2. Project in facts and numbers

3. Competition Workshops Exhibitions

4. Recent 3 editions of ERC in numbers
70 000 visitors Finalists from 15 countries
(among others: Australia, USA, Canada, Spain, Poland, Colombia,
Egypt, Nepal, India, Turkey)
120 registered teams
700 competitors
Almost 5000 press releases
in the media worldwide
100 exhibitors
300 volunteers
Over 400 000 activities in social media
(eg. shares, likes and comments for ERC posts and videos)

5. Selected partners of recent ERC

6. Publications in the
media worldwide
Publications in
mainstream media
in Poland

7. Organizers' motivations
• Networking
• Inspiring Research & Development
• Benchmarking - monitoring of R&D
progress
• Concepts and tools validation
• Economy development - emerging
business and inspiring existing
activities
• Early career development
• Science & Technology popularization

8. Participants'
motivations
• Self / team / university
promotion
• Fundraising - grants, uni
money, crowd source
• Search for technology /
business niche
• CV
• Complex problems
• Networking

9. Business' interests
• Recruitment
• Professional (even early stage)
networking
• ‘Smart people are the value!’
• Business / technology development /
benchmarking
• Public Relations-
technology/concepts acceptance by
public
• Coordinated research → emerging
business

10. In my opinion ERC is an amazing
opportunity for the entire region to
develop.
prof. Scott Hubbard
ex. Head of NASA Ames
You are doing a great job, you are giving
an experience and you are encouraging
people to take the further actions.
dr Harrison Schmitt
Apollo 17
This event is a spectacular success.
dr Robert Zubrin
Founder of The Mars Society

11. 2018 edition

12. Date and place
14th – 17th of September 2018
Museum of Nature and Technology
in Starachowice, POLAND

13. Event’s situation map
Legend:
● - Mars yard and Moon Field Trials
● - Exhibition Zone
● - Teams’ working zone

14. Two Formulas
• ERC STUDENT
• ERC PRO
Rules prepared on the basis of the
roadmaps of NASA and ESA

15. Real (future) missions perspective
Mars Now (ExoMars)
Moon (Resource
Prospector)
Future Small
Exploration
Platforms
(HOPTER)
Mars Near Future (Sample Fetch Rover)

16. Amazing awards
Example:
Winners of the ERC 2018 and
their rover will take part in
Austrian Space Forum’s (OEWF)
Mars analogue mission AMADEE
2020 on the Arabian Peninsula

17. Rover Challenge - purpose
• Tasks related to parts of foreseen robotic
exploration and human exploration support
activities like autonomous navigation, grasping,
manipulation, sampling, drilling etc.
• Good opportunity for science popularisation
• Presenting variety of separated potential
commercialisation, like platform navigation,
sensing, smart operations and manipulation,
autonomy etc.

18. ERC workshops
• Mentoring and networking
• Business matching (ventures, bridge
funds)
• HR zone (potential career boosters)
• Project management and complexive
problem solution workshops

19. Registered teams for 2018 Student

20. Registered teams for 2018 Student

21. Opportunities

22. Cooperation
• Creation of world exploration technologies
benchmark - tool to monitor advancement over
time
• Major potential for cooperation with different
institutions incl. worldwide space agencies

23. NEAREST FUTURE – Enceladus Arena
• Underwater robots
• Different robots and probably different teams
than ‘basic’ track - building link between
terrestrial robotics and space ‘market’
• Presenting strong link between typical space
exploration tasks and Earth applications
• Can be organised at swimming pool or other
easily manageable and observable object with
still water

24. Contact me
Lukasz Wilczynski
lukasz@spacefdn.com
Visit
www.roverchallenge.eu
Let’s meet in Poland in September 2018