From June 15-17, we were thrilled to compete in the inaugural Lunabotics UK competition at the Open University in Milton Keynes. Originally created and hosted in the US, this renowned competition made its UK debut this year, supported by NASA and Caterpillar.

A team of 12 of our students assembled and constructed our newly designed Deimos rover on-site in just three days. Despite facing motor connection issues and electrical component failures, the team's quick critical thinking and relentless troubleshooting, got our new excavator system fully operational.

With our foundations built and lessons learned, we are already working on an iterative design for next year that builds directly upon the experience and investments of 2026.

On August 1st, our Mini Rover team competed in the Olympus Rover Trials at RAL Space in Didcot, Oxfordshire.

The Mini Rover team serves as our 'stepping stone' within MarsWorks, developing the practical and technical skills of first-year engineering students to prepare them for the main rover team later in their studies. The Mini Rover team is also essential in our outreach efforts, inspiring prospective students to pursue space and engineering careers.

When power delivery issues arose in our motor drivers, our team adapted and got the rover running smoothly. The Mini Rover successfully passed through two rounds of vibration testing, a credit to the Mini Rover team's hard work.

As Project MarsWorks enters its milestone 10th year as a project, the design process for our next rover is already underway. To celebrate a decade of our project, we are raising the bar with an ambitious goal: competing in three major competitions in the 2026/2027 academic year:

• The Olympus Rover Trials

• Lunabotics UK

• The Anatolian Rover Challenge (held in Turkey)