Team dossier index
The book profiles 51 teams: eight Tier A, 24 Tier B and 19 Tier C. The profile is where a team’s rover, its results and the evidence behind both are set out, and this page indexes all of them by university, country, years at the finals and source count. The tier rule and the 68-team census are on the census page.
Key takeaways
- The tier is a result, not a reputation. It comes from the official scores of 2022 to 2026 plus a documentation test, and documentation can move a team one band but cannot buy a tier on its own.
- Eight teams carry the design evidence. The Tier A profiles draw on design reviews, public code and review films; most Tier C profiles rest on a website and a score row.
- Two profiles sit outside the census. Alberta and Waterloo registered each year without reaching the finals sheet and are profiled anyway, because their public engineering record is unusually good.
How the tiers are set
A team’s tier is derived from its finals record over 2022 to 2026 and from a tested documentation flag, never from its reputation S-CENSUS. Tier A is a podium finish in any year, a top-six average across at least two finals, or an exceptional public record with a best finish inside six. Tier B is a consistent top-20 average, a best finish inside twelve, or a documented team with two finals. Tier C is everyone else, including any team that recorded a review score but no mission scores.
The documentation test is deliberately narrow. A full public report set, meaning design-review documents or an open documentation archive, counts for more than a project page, and a project page counts for more than a website or a university news item. That is why two teams with similar results can sit in different tiers: the tier answers how much evidence exists as well as how well the team finished.
All profiles
The table lists every profile once, in tier order, and each team name links to its page.
| Tier | Team | University | Country | Years | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | AGH Space Systems (AGH University of Krakow) | AGH University of Krakow | Poland | 4 | 23 |
| A | BYU Mars Rover (Brigham Young University) | Brigham Young University | United States | 5 | 14 |
| A | Michigan Mars Rover Team (MRover) | University of Michigan | United States | 5 | 58 |
| A | Missouri S&T Mars Rover Design Team (MRDT) | Missouri University of Science and Technology | United States | 5 | 53 |
| A | Monash Nova Rover | Monash University | Australia | 5 | 41 |
| A | Northeastern University Mars Rover Team ("NURover") | Northeastern University | United States | 5 | 20 |
| A | UIU Mars Rover Team | United International University | Bangladesh | 5 | 32 |
| A | West Virginia University: Team Mountaineers | West Virginia University | United States | 5 | 68 |
| B | A.S.T.R.A. (University of Alabama in Huntsville) | University of Alabama in Huntsville | United States | 5 | 20 |
| B | ARES Project (Tohoku / Keio, Japan) | Multi-institution (Tohoku, Keio,...) | International (multi-country) | 3 | 15 |
| B | BRACU Mongol-Tori | BRAC University | Bangladesh | 5 | 28 |
| B | DAM Robotics (Oregon State University) | Oregon State University | United States | 2 | 14 |
| B | Husky Robotics (University of Washington) | University of Washington | United States | 2 | 13 |
| B | IITB Mars Rover Team (IIT Bombay) | Indian Institute of Technology Bombay | India | 3 | 15 |
| B | IMPULS (Kielce University of Technology) | Kielce University of Technology | Poland | 3 | 16 |
| B | KNR Rover Team (Warsaw University of Technology) | Warsaw University of Technology | Poland | 2 | 14 |
| B | Legendary Rover (Rzeszów University of Technology) | Rzeszow University of Technology | Poland | 2 | 15 |
| B | Mars Rover Manipal (Manipal Institute of Technology) | Manipal Institute of Technology | India | 3 | 15 |
| B | MAVRIC (Iowa State University) | Iowa State University | United States | 2 | 15 |
| B | MIST Mongol Barota | Military Institute of Science and Technology | Bangladesh | 5 | 20 |
| B | New Haven Robotics (University of New Haven) | University of New Haven | United States | 3 | 11 |
| B | PCz Rover Team (Czestochowa University of Technology) | Czestochowa University of Technology | Poland | 2 | 15 |
| B | Project Scorpio (Wrocław University of Science and Technology) | Wroclaw University of Science and Technology | Poland | 3 | 16 |
| B | QSET: Queen's Space Engineering Team (Queen's University) | Queen's University | Canada | 5 | 13 |
| B | Quantum Robotics (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) | Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey | Mexico | 4 | 17 |
| B | Robotics for Space Exploration (RSX), University of Toronto | University of Toronto | Canada | 3 | 22 |
| B | SC Robotics (Saddleback College / Irvine Valley College) | Saddleback College | United States | 4 | 13 |
| B | SKA Robotics (Warsaw University of Technology) | Warsaw University of Technology | Poland | 2 | 14 |
| B | Sooner Rover Team (University of Oklahoma) | University of Oklahoma | United States | 4 | 15 |
| B | Toronto MetRobotics (TMR) | Toronto Metropolitan University | Canada | 4 | 15 |
| B | Wisconsin Robotics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | United States | 4 | 21 |
| B | Yonder Dynamics (UC San Diego) | University of California, San Diego | United States | 5 | 11 |
| C | Ad Astra (Sairam Institutions) | Sairam Institutions | India | 2 | 10 |
| C | Binghamton University Rover Team (SUNY Binghamton) | Binghamton University (SUNY) | United States | 3 | 10 |
| C | Carleton Planetary Robotics Team (CPRT) (Carleton University) | Carleton University | Canada | 2 | 13 |
| C | Ceres (Universidad de los Andes) | Universidad de los Andes | Colombia | 1 | 10 |
| C | Cornell Mars Rover (CMR) | Cornell University | United States | 4 | 22 |
| C | ITU Rover Team (Istanbul Technical University) | Istanbul Technical University | Turkey | 4 | 14 |
| C | KARURA (international: Texas A&M + Japanese universities) | Multi-institution (Texas A&M + Japanese universities) | International (multi-country) | 3 | 13 |
| C | Mars Rover UdeG Space (Universidad de Guadalajara) | Universidad de Guadalajara | Mexico | 3 | 10 |
| C | Project Altair (Islamic University of Technology) | Islamic University of Technology | Bangladesh | 2 | 9 |
| C | Robocol (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia) | Universidad de los Andes | Colombia | 2 | 15 |
| C | Space Concordia Robotics Division (Concordia University) | Concordia University | Canada | 2 | 10 |
| C | Space Exploration Alberta Robotics (SPEAR) (University of Alberta) | University of Alberta | Canada | 2022-2026 registrations; no finals | 13 |
| C | Team Anveshak (IIT Madras) | Indian Institute of Technology Madras | India | 2 | 15 |
| C | Team Interplanetar (BUET) | Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) | Bangladesh | 2 | 10 |
| C | Team RoSE: Robotic Space Exploration (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa) | University of Hawaii at Manoa | United States | 3 | 11 |
| C | UBC Rover (University of British Columbia) | University of British Columbia | Canada | 1 | 11 |
| C | UMD Loop (University of Maryland, College Park) | University of Maryland, College Park | United States | 1 | 11 |
| C | UW Robotics / UWRT (University of Waterloo) | University of Waterloo | Canada | 2022-2026 registrations; no finals | 15 |
| C | YILDIZ ROVER (Yıldız Technical University) | Yıldız Technical University | Turkey | 5 | 13 |
How to read the columns
- Years is the number of editions from 2022 to 2026 in which the team recorded a finals result. For the two teams that registered each year without reaching the finals, the column gives the registration span instead.
- Sources is the number of distinct source documents the profile cites. It measures breadth of evidence, not quality of design, and a profile can be short and still be well sourced.
- Country and University follow the URC team-info pages for the years the team competed.
Teams without a profile
Nineteen of the 68 census teams have no page of their own. They appear in the census with their results, and most publish no engineering material beyond a website, so a profile would rest on a score row and a photograph. The absence is recorded rather than filled, because a thin page that reads like a full one would mislead a team choosing which machines to study.
The two teams profiled outside the census are the reverse case. Alberta and Waterloo never recorded a finals result between 2022 and 2026, but both publish enough engineering material to be worth a page, so they carry a Tier C profile and a note in the table that they reached registration only.
What a source count measures
The count is of distinct documents, not of claims. A single review film can support a dozen statements about a suspension, and a team with a public repository will always out-count a team with a good rover and a quiet website. The source index explains how those documents are distributed.
Sources for this page
- S-CENSUSURC team census, master index (68 teams, 187 team-year rows, tiers, documentation test)Print copy