Mass and power data
These are the seven tables behind the mass and power analysis: rover mass totals, component masses, battery packs, electrical loads, team scores, model outputs and coverage counts. A row reads left to right as team or quantity, year, value with its unit, the evidence basis and the source. The model that turns the rows into a budget is Mass and power.
Key takeaways
- Every row carries its own evidence basis. A mass is team-published, arithmetic from a stated reduction, a CAD sum, a university report, or the single judge-weighed figure in the record.
- The mass rows cover 17 configurations from eight teams, and four of them sit within 0.2 kg of the limit, one at 49.8 kg and three at exactly 50.0 kg.
- Table F.7 sets the limit on the rest. It counts what the field publishes, and those counts are the reason every mass and energy figure in this book is a model rather than a measurement of one rover.
The seven tables
| Table | What it holds | Rows |
|---|---|---|
| F.1 | Rover mass totals: 17 configurations from eight teams, 2021–2026 | 17 |
| F.2 | Partial and component masses: chassis, suspension, wheels, arm and pack items | 19 |
| F.3 | Energy storage: chemistry, configuration, voltage, capacity and energy for each pack | 22 |
| F.4 | Electrical loads: the datapoints used in the load model | 12 |
| F.5 | Scores: the teams in the mass database, with their mission scores and totals | 12 |
| F.6 | Model outputs: power, energy and nameplate for a 35 kg and a 50 kg rover | 12 |
| F.7 | Coverage statistics: what the field publishes, and how often | 9 |
| Total | 103 |
The full table
The table opens on one of the seven and switches between them with the selector at the top; the search box filters the visible table by team, year, item, basis or note.
What the mass rows show
Across the 17 configurations the minimum is 33.0 kg, the maximum 53.0 kg, the mean 47.9 kg and the median 49.1 kg. Four configurations sit within 0.2 kg of the limit: UIU’s 2022 Maven at 49.8 kg, and three rovers listed at exactly 50.0 kg, BRACU’s Taurus in 2026, Toronto Met’s Ingenuity in 2026 and MIST’s Aurora X in 2025. That pile-up under the line is a design choice rather than a coincidence: the limit is 50 kg per deployed configuration, with a penalty of 5 % of that event’s points per kilogram over it S-URC27-RULES §2.a.ii–iii. The lightest rover in the set, WVU’s 33.0 kg Wanderer in 2023, won the competition with 425.35 points S-WVU-SAR2023 S-URC-RESULTS.
The distribution is a record of teams that chose to publish. Fourteen of 187 team-years in the 2022–2026 window carry a total mass, which is 7.5 % of the field, and exactly one mass in the whole record was read from a judge’s scale: MIST Phoenix, 42.1 kg, at the virtual event in 2021 S-MIST-VURC2021. The rest are the teams’ own statements, arithmetic from a stated change, or a sum of CAD link masses.
Reading an evidence basis
| Basis | What it means | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Team-published | The team’s own page, report or specification table | Good enough to size a budget; not a weigh-in |
| Judge-weighed | Measured on a scale at the event, with the source in the row | The only measurement class in the table |
| Arithmetic from a stated reduction | Derived from a later or earlier figure and a percentage the team gave | Treat as an estimate with a stated chain |
| CAD sum | Added from the link masses in a published model | A design intent, not a built mass; open links understate it |
| Reported by a university | A news release or similar secondary account | Context only until a team document confirms it |
The F.2 rows show why the basis matters. The Monash Banksia chassis, suspension, ankles, wheels and differential bar add to 24.42 kg from the published robot model, while the arm in a separate model file sums to 6.54 kg with several links at near zero, so the real arm is likely heavier S-MONASH-GH-NOVA. A CAD total is a floor on the mass of the parts it describes.
What the coverage rows say
Table F.7 is short and it constrains everything else on this page. One team publishes a subsystem breakdown, four teams publish battery chemistry, voltage or capacity, no team publishes a measured energy figure for a mission, and no team publishes a centre-of-gravity table. One of the five champions from 2022 to 2026 has a published mass.
Those limits are set out topic by topic on Evidence coverage and known limits. The practical consequence is that the power figures in table F.6 are model outputs: the 249 W average and 3.7 kW peak of the analysis come from the duty cycle and the load lines, not from a logged discharge, and the pack sizes of 273 to 289 Wh follow from that model.
How to read the mass figures
Masses are the teams’ own published figures unless the basis column says otherwise. A row marked as arithmetic is derived from a stated reduction, not weighed. The only judge-weighed mass in the record is MIST Phoenix at 42.1 kg. The 50 kg limit applies to each deployed configuration, not to the total of all fielded parts, which is capped separately at 70 kg.
Download and reuse
The seven tables are available as one CSV, which is the same data the table above displays: mass and power data. The official score sheets remain the authority for any result, and the source identifier in each row resolves in the bibliography.
The data may be reused with attribution to the Robotics Club at Mississippi State University; the terms are on Credits and reuse.
Further reading
- Mass and power is the analysis these rows support, with the 50 kg budget and the pack arithmetic.
- Mass states the headline mass statistics with their sample.
- Power and energy states the draw and energy figures with their duty cycle.
- Evidence coverage and known limits explains why the field publishes so little.
Sources for this page
- S-URC27-RULESUniversity Rover Challenge 2027 – Requirements and GuidelinesOriginal Archived copy
- S-WVU-SAR2023Team Mountaineers System Acceptance Review 2023 (rover "Wanderer"): Cambium PTP 450 900 MHz link, 850 m LOS / 300 m NLOS, 2 m telescoping mast, drone 900 MHz + 2.4 GHzOriginal
- S-URC-RESULTSURC official scores 2022–2026, compiled CSVPrint copy
- S-MIST-VURC2021"Virtual URC 2021: MIST Mongol Barota, Session 1" on the official University Rover Challenge channel (1:20:42, uploaded 2021); full judged run: weigh-in 42.1 kg, box check 1.047 m, Equipment Servicing 100/100, Autonomous Navigation failure + manual intervention; auto-caption transcript retrieved with yt-dlp,write-auto-subOriginal
- S-MONASH-GH-NOVAMonashNovaRover/nova, "The Monash Nova Rover mono-repo" (Apache-2.0; default branch main; 2,389 files; last push 2026-10-23)Original