The UIU Mars Rover team from United International University (UIU) won 1^st place in Asia for the third time in a row at the University Rover Challenge 2024 organized by the Mars Society. The competition was held on 29 May – 01 June 2024 at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Hanksville, Utah, USA. The “UIU Mars Rover Team” stood 1^st in Asia in 2022 and 2023 at the University Rover Challenge Competition.

During the three-day final, the teams performed four missions including science exploration, autonomous navigation, extreme terrain traversal and Equipment servicing missions to demonstrate the capabilities of their rover and operation skills. UIU Mars Rover successfully completed all four missions and represented the university along with the country with pride.

UIU Mars Rover team has secured 5^th place out of all 38 finalists and 1^st among the Asian teams in the prestigious University Rover Challenge (URC) 2024. 38 teams from 15 different countries including USA, Poland, India, Bangladesh, Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Turkiye compete in the grand final of the competition.

The team was supervised by Prof. Dr. Salekul Islam from the Dept. of CSE, UIU and mentored by Mr. Abid Hossain, Lecturer Dept. of CSE, UIU. A team of 10 members from the UIU Robotics Club took part in the competition. The student lead of this project is Md. Yasin from Dept. of CSE, UIU. The other subteams are led by Sakib Mahmud Saad (Management SubTeam Lead), Bayzid Uddin Miah (Mechanical SubTeam Lead), Shah Mehrab Hossain Fahim (Electrical SubTeam Lead), Sheikh Shakib Hossain (Software SubTeam Lead), Shorower Hossain (Communication SubTeam Lead) and Suraia Afroz Maria (Science SubTeam Lead).

This year, a number of two teams represent Bangladesh on the international stage. 'BRACU Mangal-Tari' team from BRAC University and ‘UIU Mars Rover Team’ from United International University (UIU) participated in the final round of Rover Challenge (URC) 2024 from May 29 to June 01, 2024 at Hanksville, Utah, USA.

In the total finalist 38 teams’ championship competition, the team ‘AGH Space Systems’ from AGH University of Krakow became the champion with scores of 392.76, the team ‘Team Mountaineer’ from West Virginia University, USA came 2^nd position with scores of 391.8, the team of ‘BYU Mars Rover’ from Brigham Young University, USA came 3^rd position with scores of 374.24 and the team of ‘Mars Rover Design Team’ from Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA came 4^th position with scores of 341.54.    The ‘UIU Mars Rover Team’ has reached 5th overall with scores of 304.25 out of 38 global finalists. In addition to UIU, seven other universities from the USA and one university from Poland and Canada have made it into the top ten of the list in the competition.