Make to Innovate (M:2:I)
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Mars Analog Vehicle for Robotic Inspection and Construction (MAVRIC)

PROJECT MISSION

MAVRIC is an analog Mars rover team focused on building the next generation of Mars rovers. Students on the team gain valuable engineering skills and become familiar with the design, manufacture, and testing stages of engineering projects. Each semester, we strive to improve our rover’s competition performance with creative and reliable designs. Our goal is to compete in the University Rover Challenge for Summer 2026.

MAVRIC Members (left to right): 

Akwasi Quarcoo, Jackson Milburn, Gage Minder, Nathan Logston, Sam Whitlock, Victor Ekstrand, Jason Melnick, Kyler Nielsen, Keith Harder, Gabe Carlson, Tyler Schmitz, Xander Scaglione, Sam Jahnke

Project Goals

  • The MAVRIC team utilizes the University Rover Challenge to develop and test our engineering skills. The team’s primary objective is to compete effectively at the URC in Utah, held each spring in June. This semester, MAVRIC must complete and submit the URC system acceptance review. This is our primary document and accompanying video that will determine if we compete in Utah. To be prepared for the SAR, we will update our autonomous system and the shoulder joint of our rover’s arm.

Project Deliverables

MAVRIC established three deliverables for this semester based on our goals and preparation for the URC:

  1. Submit the System Acceptance Review to the URC judges to qualify for the competition. This required a five-minute video and a six-page report.

Autonomous capable of navigating to a GPS waypoint, locating a nearby ArUco tag, parking within two meters of it, and signaling task completion

Improvements to the arm shoulder to reduce play to less than ten degrees while maintaining the ability to lift 5kg and open a compartment door.

Next Steps

  1. Competed at URC and placed 11th.