Calvin News

“You look at a project to build a Mars rover that can cross Martian terrain and pick up objects, and for college students—especially college freshmen—the task seems impossible” said Sam Dare, a freshman engineering major and co-founder of the Calvin Mars Rover team. “But we knew that when you see an enormous problem, you just have to figure out how to break it down and accomplish it step-by-step.”

Pursuing the impossible

The Calvin Mars Rover Team was co-founded by freshmen Sam Dare and Fenton Lawler to compete in the annual University Rover Challenge hosted by The Mars Society, an international nonprofit organization that seeks to encourage space exploration and technologies. The three-day competition, was created for college-age students to design, construct and test a remote-controlled rover capable of completing specific tasks and judged on the successful completion of challenges. Dare anticipates tasks such as site surveying, sample returns, astronaut assistance and equipment servicing.

“We both did robotics in high school and our passion for engineering and designing really grew from that,” said Lawler. He and Dare met the first week of school at Calvin, discussed their shared interest in robotics and decided to take on this Mars Rover endeavor. 

“The competition and task to create a rover is set up to seem impossible at first, but allows students to rise to the occasion,” said Dare. “We started with nothing five months ago and we’re really proud of how far we’ve come.”

Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration

Officially, 75 students have been involved in this project or have attended at least one meeting; however, 20 regular students consistently work on the Rover, of which more than 80 percent are freshmen. “Everyone who has worked on this project has done it because they love it,” said Lawler.

While Lawler and Dare both have previous FIRST robotics experience, they want their team to be a place where students can learn and grow, even if they are coming into Calvin without much hands-on knowledge. Duncan Van Kevlen, a freshman computer science major, came in with no previous robotics experience. “I’ve learned so much from being involved,” he said. “I came in knowing nothing about the operating system we were using or anything about robotics and I’ve learned so much about leadership too.”

Interdisciplinary and cross-major collaboration has played a huge role in this project as well, explained Lawler. “We have business and art majors that have been working with us to design things like the logo and also had communications students help us make our competition submission video,” he said.

Renard Tubergen, professor of engineering has acted as the team’s primary advisor for this project. He noted that it is pretty rare to see and initiative of this scale in group of students that are primarily freshmen. While he has taken more of a backseat and let the responsibility remain with the students, he has enjoyed working with the team. “It is always great to work with motivated, talented people who share of common vision,” he said.

Continuing exploration and improvement

The Mars Society is currently reviewing their competition package—consisting of a written report and a video of the rover in action. The team anticipates hearing back regarding their acceptance to the competition by March 18.

Now that the rover is built, the team will begin the process of running tests and making changes to their designs. “We are on track to be competition ready by the competition in June,” said Dare. If their rover does get accepted to the competition, the team has more long hours ahead of them. “Every other week we hope to go out to a different park to simulate a competition,” said Dare. “We will continue to redesign as we go.”

Much of this project was made possible by sponsors and individual contributions. Current sponsors include Gentex, Striker and Equal Design. The team has also been able to raise nearly $2500 through crowd funded contributions as well as selling mugs and T-shirts. 

In the coming months, Lawler and Dare will continue to seek out individuals who will partner with them as they approach competition.

Cultivating forward-thinking community

Regardless of if they enter the competition, the team has plans to continue next year. “We hope this continues for the next four or even 400 years,” said Lawler. He hopes that eventually even more design teams will form at Calvin, allowing students to participate in even more challenges that push their abilities.

“We want this to be something that people with robotics experience can see and say, ‘that’s really cool, I want to go there,’” said Lawler. “Or if you just have a passion to build, to design, to make something new, this will be a program you can join.” Dare anticipates Calvin becoming a place that students interested in robotics will begin to seek out specifically. “We want to make Calvin a place where robotics people can come in and find a home,” he said.

Find out more about the Mars Rover team and make donations to the project on the team's official website.