AIUB Robotic Crew (ARC) has secured a position amongst the top finalist teams who participated in the worldwide acclaimed robotics competition, University Rover Challenge (URC) 2018, putting 10 acclaimed university teams from US, India, Poland and Turkey behind them in the scoreboard. Hosted annually by The Mars Society in Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) located near Hanksville, Utah, US, this 12^th edition of the Rover Challenge Series saw to a very competitive selection process, where only 36 teams from 10 countries qualified out of the 95 teams who applied from all across the globe. ARC came in 26^th out of these finalist teams who were invited to MDRS to compete at the final rounds of the competition. The competition challenges student teams from all over the world to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers that will one-day work alongside astronauts exploring the Red Planet. The competition was held from the 31^st of May, 2018 and continued on to the 2^nd of June, 2018, testing the capabilities of the rovers through a series of challenges, namely, the Science Cache Task, Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task, Equipment Servicing Task and Autonomous Traversal Task.

AIUB Robotic Crew is the only team from Bangladesh at MDRS to compete for a third time in a row. The journey this team has embarked upon over the course of 3 years has seen the members evolve in knowledge and experience, while also encouraging the later generation of new members to come together to build a rover capable of traversing an extraterrestrial planet and conducting scientific studies on its surface. The team this year comprises of 22 members from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), Department of Computer Engineering (CoE) and Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE). The team was guided throughout this entire journey by advisor, Mr. Ebad Zahir, Senior Assistant Professor & Special Assistant, Department of EEE and CoE, AIUB. The team which travelled to MDRS with 13 members of ARC was accompanied by Mr. Chowdhury Akram Hossain, Senior Assistant Professor, Department of EEE and CoE, AIUB & Special Assistant, Office of Student Affairs (OSA).

Throughout this long journey, ARC is incredibly grateful for the support from all the local and international sponsors. ARC’s achievements would not have been possible without the blessings and encouragement from AIUB management, especially from Dr. Carmen Z. Lamagna, Vice Chancellor, AIUB; Dr. Hasanul A. Hasan, Founder Member, Treasurer & Vice President HR, AIUB; Mr. Ishtiaque Abedin, Chairman, Founder and Vice President, International Affairs and Public Relations, AIUB; Ms. Nadia Anwar, Founder and Vice President, Student Affairs, AIUB and the support from Prof. Dr. A.B.M Sidiqque Hossain, Dean, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB; Prof. Dr. Md. Abdur Rahman, Director, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB; Mr. Mashiour Rahman, Director & Associate Professor, Faculty of Science & Information Technology, AIUB and Dr. Khandaker Tabin Hasan, Head (Graduate Program, CS & Dept. of MIS) & Associate Professor, Faculty of Science & Information Technology, AIUB.