Sooner Rover Team (University of Oklahoma)

Sooner reached seventh in 2022 with Science at 90 and Autonomy at 70, and then lost a subsystem almost every year: 12^th in 2023, 19^th in 2024 and 32^nd in 2025. The decline is not uniform. Autonomy fell from 70 to 56 to 42 to zero, Equipment Servicing from 25 to 37 to 28 to 8.25, and Science stayed flat between 59 and 65. That pattern is the signature of knowledge leaving a student team, not of one bad competition, and it is the most useful thing a first build can learn from this dossier.

Identity and results

The rows reproduce the published results S-URC22-SCORES S-URC23-SCORES S-URC24-SCORES S-URC25-SCORES. The team was on the official team list in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 and registered in 2022, so 2026 is a qualified season with no recorded result rather than a non-entry S-URC26-TEAMS S-URC26-SCORES. No award is documented in any year, and no rover name appears in any source reached.

Rover generations

2017 and 2018: the first entries. Two 23^rd places with the same shape: Science between 80 and 89.57, and Delivery, Equipment Servicing and Autonomy between zero and 15. The rover could analyse a sample and could not yet manipulate one S-URC-HISTRESULTS.

2022: the best rover. Science 90 and Autonomy 70 produced 271.65 points and seventh place, with Delivery at zero and Equipment at 25. A science-first rover that could also navigate autonomously was enough for the top ten in that field S-URC22-SCORES.

2023 and 2024: the slide begins. Delivery recovered to 15 and Equipment reached 37, then 28, while autonomy fell from 56 to 42. In 2024 the review score reached 94.01, the best in the team’s record, in what was then its worst finals season S-URC23-SCORES S-URC24-SCORES.

2025: two subsystems gone. Autonomy returned to zero and Equipment Servicing fell to 8.25, leaving only Science and a partial Delivery. The total fell to 179.79 and the rank to 32^nd S-URC25-SCORES.

2026: registered, not measured. A review film was published in February 2026 and the team is on the registered list, but there is no row in the 2026 score sheet S-SOONER-SAR2026 S-URC26-TEAMS.

Subsystems

Mobility. A tubular metal suspension with machined brackets and wheels with bright red rims and bolted metal spokes. Wheel count, diameter, motor model and mass are not stated in any of the nine review films S-SOONER-SAR2026.

Manipulation. A parallel or multi-finger gripper on an arm, demonstrated on a cone. Arm degrees of freedom, reach and actuator family are unpublished. Equipment Servicing fell from 37 in 2023 to 8.25 in 2025, which suggests the arm lost capability rather than never having it S-SOONER-SAR2026 S-URC25-SCORES.

Science. The 2026 review film chapters a science section at 2:57, but the instrument suite, the sampling depth and the assay are not described in any text reached. The scores are the evidence: 80, 89.57, 90, 65.25, 59 and 60 across six finals S-URC26-SCORES.

Autonomy. The 2026 film chapters an autonomous section at 3:48, and what it demonstrates is not described in text. The score is the hard evidence, and it fell from 70 to zero in four seasons S-URC25-SCORES.

Communications, power and compute. Nothing is published. There is no repository, no report and no specification page, and nothing in the nine film titles or descriptions mentions a radio, a battery or a computer.

Mission performance

The 2022 season is the anomaly in a mostly flat record. Two 23^rd places in 2017 and 2018, then seventh in 2022, then a monotone slide through 12^th, 19^th and 32^nd. Science is roughly flat at 59 to 65 through the slide, so the total is not falling because the payload got worse. It is falling because autonomy and Equipment Servicing stopped working S-URC22-SCORES S-URC25-SCORES.

The gap between the review score and the field result is the other recurring fact. In 2024 the team produced a 94.01 review, its best, and finished 19^th. The written review measures the plan; the missions measure the system, and this team’s plans have consistently outrun its systems S-URC24-SCORES.

Lessons for a first build

• Autonomy is one graduation away from zero unless it is written down. A drop from 70 to zero in four seasons is the clearest evidence in this dossier that capability which lives only in a member does not persist.
• A science-strong rover still loses on Delivery. The oldest failure in this record dates from 2017 and recurs in 2022. Delivery deserves its own owner and its own rehearsal.
• A film a year is a floor, not a strategy. Nine consecutive review films kept the team eligible and left no engineering trace. One named rover, one mass table and one repository would have changed what a successor could inherit.
• Watch the second derivative. One bad season is noise; four seasons of decline concentrated in two subsystems is a pattern that shows up a year before the rank does.
• The written review does not rank a team. The best review score came in the worst season to that point. Plan the missions with the same care as the review.

What remains uncertain

No rover name or generation has ever been published, so the line from 2017 to 2026 cannot be reconstructed. Mass, dimensions, battery, radios, motor models and arm geometry are absent from every source. Why 2026 produced a registration and a published film but no finals row is not stated. Why autonomy fell to zero in 2025 while the review score held at 89.14 would need a statement from the team. Whether the 2022 and 2025 rosters share members is unknown.

Team sources

• YouTube channel, review films from 2018 to 2026.
• 2026 review film, the primary evidence for the current rover.