19 April 2024
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Team Polar goes north | blog 1
Almost a year of planning and prototyping is finally complete, and our first working prototype is now ready to be tested. Of course, we have already conducted some tests, but we needed to find a location with conditions at least somewhat similar to Antarctica. Therefore, a team of eleven students from different backgrounds went to Trondheim, Norway, to see how our vehicle performed in snow and ice.
Our main goal during the trip was to figure out how to adapt our concept to make it ready for Antarctica. After returning, we will also visit some universities to showcase our work and pursue possible collaborations.
The "rover" developed by our team is made with ordinary, off-the-shelf components. However, in the future, customized components may be needed for specific models. Therefore, this rover will be a foundation for our team's future. We will be able to control it remotely, allowing us to perform more precise tests. These tests will provide essential insights that can help us ensure that our next prototype will be suitable for a mission in Antarctica.
The trip to Norway took place January 4-8, where we explored the capabilities of our vehicle and visit some universities on the way back.
Our vehicle was subjected to many performance and durability tests, such as driving in snow, performance of solar panels and batteries, waterproofing and much more. We know that our concept is not yet perfect, but we are confident that with the experience of prototypes, the test results of our vehicle and some further design and research, we can achieve our goal: namely, the development of a sustainable, autonomous and affordable way of doing research in Antarctica.
We also like to maintain good relations with other student teams in other countries. Therefore, we will also introduce our rover to the universities of Trondheim (NTNU), Copenhagen (DTU) and TU Braunschweig (TUB). This will boost our creativity and give our motivation a big boost. We were very happy with the opportunity to build our rover at the Innovation Space workshop in Eindhoven, as it provided us with a wide range of facilities and knowledgeable experts to guide us. Therefore, we also hope to inspire other local student teams on how to tackle a big goal like building a research vehicle for Antarctica.
We are very grateful to all our partners who made it possible for us to come here, and special thanks to the University Fund Eindhoven (UFe), the EuroTech Alliance and EuroTech Universities for making our trip to Norway possible. Needless to say, we are super looking forward to our trip; our luggage is packed and we are ready to see our creation in action!
Follow the adventure
Read all the latest updates from the TU/e Polar student team here!
