UIU Mars Rover: Asia’s Best 4th Time, World’s Top Science Team
The UIU Mars Rover team from United International University (UIU) won 1st place in Asia for the 4th consecutive time and 6th place globally in the University Rover Challenge 2024 organized by the Mars Society.
The competition was held on 28-31 May 2025 at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Hanksville, Utah, USA. The “UIU Mars Rover Team” stood 1st in Asia in 2022, 2023 and 2024 at the University Rover Challenge Competition.
During the three-day final, the teams performed four missions including science exploration, autonomous navigation, extreme terrain traversal and Equipment servicing missions to demonstrate the capabilities of their rover and operation skills. UIU Mars Rover successfully completed all four missions and represented the university along with the country with pride.
UIU Mars Rover team has secured 6th place out of all 38 finalists and 1st among the Asian teams in the prestigious University Rover Challenge (URC) 2025. In addition to this remarkable achievement, the team won the Best Science Team Award, scoring a perfect 100/100 in the science mission — a first for any Asian team. 38 teams from 15 different countries including USA, Poland, India, Bangladesh, Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Turkiye compete in the grand final of the competition.
The team was supervised by Md. Abid Hossain, Lecturer, Dept. of CSE, UIU. A team of 10 Members from the UIU Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) participated in the competition. The student lead of this project is Md. Mushfiqur Rahman from Dept. of EEE, UIU.
The other subteams are led by Sakib Mahmud Saad (Management SubTeam Lead), Md. Siam bin Rashid (Mechanical SubTeam Lead), Gazi Tawsif Turabi (Electrical SubTeam Lead), Ahmed Jebail Soukhin (Software SubTeam Lead), Md. Ifte Faisal (Communication SubTeam Lead) and Saif Al Saad (Science SubTeam Lead).
In the total finalist 38 teams’ championship competition, the team ‘Mars Rover Design Team’ from Missouri University of Science and Technology became the champion with scores of 412.27, the team ‘Team Mountaineer’ from West Virginia University, USA came 2nd position with scores of 396.17, the team ‘Northeastern Mars Rover Team’ from Northeastern University, USA came 3rd position with scores of 362.42, the team of ‘BYU Mars Rover Team’ from Brigham Young University, USA came 4th position with scores of 356.76 and the team of ‘Legendary Rover’ from Rzeszów University of Technology, Poland came 5th position with scores of 351.25.
The ‘UIU Mars Rover Team’ has reached 6th overall and 1st in Asia with scores of 325.93 out of 38 global finalist teams. This success is a proud moment not only for United International University but also for Bangladesh, proving that determination and talent can thrive against all odds.
In addition, the positions of other teams participating from Bangladesh in the finals of the University Rover Challenge-2025 are - BRAC University's ‘BRACU Mongol-Tori’ team is 8th, Military Institute of Science and Technology's ‘MIST Mongol Barota’ team is 14th and Islamic University of Technology's ‘Project Altair’ team is 18th.
