Olympus Rover Trials
Robotics that are truly out of this world
Competition background
The Olympus Rover Trials are intended to mimic the real requirements of a rover which would travel to the surface of Mars and remotely conduct a mission such as drilling or sample collection.
The competition is split into 2 streams: Beginner and Advanced. The purpose of the two streams is to make ORT accessible and fun for teams who are new to robotics while also allowing experienced teams to innovate and challenge themselves.
2024/25
Following victory in the Beginner stream in our first year, QPL stepped up to the advances stream for 2025 and did so in style. The QPL rover, equipped with a 2-axis gimbaled camera, travelled to the Airbus Mars Yard in July, placing highly amongst strong competition and bringing home the prize for Best Outreach thanks to several excellent public engagement events run throughout the year. The rover also successfully passed the Airbus vibration test, making it partly qualified to fly on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy!
2023/24
2023/24 was the first time as team from Queen’s University Belfast represented Northern Ireland at ORT. As a result, the team entered the Beginner stream and in October they began a journey of development to design and built a rover for the competition day in July.
With a crucial input from the QUB Robotics Society, the team met every deadline and ultimately travelled to RAL Space in Harwell Space Cluster for the competition day. After an intense schedule of presentations, vibration testing and field trialing of the rover, QPL’s team was crowned champions!
