Mexicans win 2 NASA challenge awards

IKTAN Roving, a team made up of undergraduate students from Tec de Monterrey’s Cuernavaca campus, has won the Ingenuity Award and Crash and Burn Award at the 2023 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge.

The 29th NASA engineering competition was held at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, United States, between April 20 and 22.

This event brought together more than 500 students from around the world, who put their rovers to the test in a half-mile obstacle course, which simulated space terrain and required teams to complete multiple alien terrain exploration tasks.

Iktan Roving, participating for the eleventh time, won prizes for demonstrating the best collaborative spirit and leadership throughout the competition, as well as for the ability to react with resilience when overcoming a major failure during the race.

Last year, this Mexican team won first place in this tournament.

The 2023 NASA challenge

The competition involves teams designing, building, and testing a rover driven by two pilots (one male and one female), which is capable of traversing challenging terrain and has the tools necessary to complete various missions.

This year, the track included a new circuit of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center base, with new obstacles that increased its difficulty, and missions aimed at collecting liquid samples and maintaining the quality of the source.

To do so, the drivers used a multipurpose tool designed by the team, which won the most points for its speed and precision when collecting samples without contaminating them.

“We were able to stand out in all the tests and won two awards for our great performance.” - David García.

“Despite not repeating a place on the podium for having one of the best times on the track (due to a broken tire), we were able to stand out in all the tests and won two awards for our performance”, explained David García, engineering professor and team mentor.

The IKTAN Roving team

This year, the participating Cuernavaca campus team was made up of 40 engineering and business students, 22 of whom traveled to the United States.

Participation by the Cuernavaca campus team has been an unbroken tradition since 2013.

“Having a winning rover is something to be very proud of.” - Ian Doring

“The awards we won represent the potential and character of TEC students; having a winning rover which beat more than 30 international teams is something to be very proud of,” shared Ian Doring, student and team driver.

This team is coordinated by the School of Engineering and Sciences at the Cuernavaca campus and is led by David García, a mechatronics professor at the campus.

“Getting recognition from other teams and your own teammates is the greatest reward there is; it’s about knowing that what you do has an impact on someone else and inspires them to do things,” said Abraham Vega, a member of the team.

A team with a history of success

IKTAN, which means ingenious in Maya, has obtained the following awards since 2013:

• Ingenuity Award (2022, 2023)
• Crash and Burn Award (2023)
• Overall Winner (first place, 2022)
• Overall Winner (second place, 2021)
• STEM Engagement Award (2021)
• AIAA Telemetry/Electronics Award (2014, 2016, and 2020)
• Jesco von Puttkamer International Team Award (2016, 2017, and 2019)
• Team Spirit Award (2018)
• Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award (2017)

In the words of student Ariel Calderón, the team’s previous successes have allowed them to “learn about what our team did in previous years and seek to improve for future competitions by adding to our knowledge bank.”

“We follow the path of those who came before us and create new paths for those who come after,” he concluded.

The NASA space competition

The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) is one of eight Artemis Student Challenges and reflects the goals of the Artemis program, which aims to put the first woman and first person of color on the Moon.

It also aims to encourage young people to study degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.

The challenge set for the competition is to get the rover to navigate a half-mile track with obstacles and accomplish missions to collect liquid and solid samples from the alien terrain.

This year, more than 500 students from all over the world participated, representing countries such as the United States, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, India, Mexico, Peru, and Singapore.

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