Team Atlas from Bangladesh reaches finals of Australian Rover Challenge 2024

Team Atlas, a robotics team from Bangladesh, has recently earned 9th position at this year's Australian Rover Challenge 2024. The team earned this rank among 14 finalists, which included institutions from India and Australia. The competition's final round was held from March 21 to March 25, 2024, at the University of Adelaide. 

At the competition, the team was required to make two adjustable chassis according to the tasks of the challenge in a lunar simulated environment. The chassis they made were named 'Rocker Bogie' and 'Viper Body'. According to the team, they had one of the fastest rovers with a velocity of almost 1.2 meters per second. The team was given four tasks in four days to complete consecutively, which included the Post Landing, Excavation, Space Resources, and Autonomous categories.

Among one of the 14 teams that reached global finals, Team Atlas ranked 9th at the end of the competition. They ranked above IIT (India), University of Western Australia (Australia), University of Delhi (India), University of Technology Sydney (Australia), and University of Wollongong (Australia). 

Team Atlas consisted of Sunny Jubayer (Team Lead, from Brac University), Jannatul Ferdous Fabin (Brac University), Mahtab Newaz (North South University), Shihab Ahmed Ananto (North South University), Md. Adham Wahid (North South University), Mohammad Sadman Wasif (North South University), Md Tanjir Arafat (BAF Shaheen College), Mohammad Mehran Islam Mahim from (BAF Shaheen College), Nur Hossen Asif (American International University Bangladesh), Atik Shahariyar Hasan (Dawood Public School and College), and Fahim Shahriar Eric (University of Dhaka). 

Regarding the achievement, Jubayer shared, "Accessibility was a primary barrier for us. With the help of our department's chair and other personnel, we were able to overcome that." He believes continuation of this support would be key in overcoming said hurdles.

The advisors for the team were Md. Saiful Islam (Senior lecturer, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Brac University), and Dr Mohammad Abdul Qayum (Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North South University). 

Md. Saiful shared that it was thrilling to guide Team Atlas as they showed what Bangladesh can do in space exploration. He believes it is just the tip of the iceberg, and a lot of untapped potential remains.

Previously, Team Atlas participated and won awards in international robotics competitions such as WRC'23 India, WICE'23 Malaysia, Techkkriti'23 India, ISIF'22 Indonesia and more.