The Makercie Rover Team is a multidisciplinary group of students from the University of Groningen, formed in February 2023. Together with our supervisor, Dr. Bahar Haghighat, a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Engineering and Technology Institute of University of Groningen (ENTEG) we are the first Dutch team to ever participate in the ERC (European Rover Challenge). The team is made up of over 80 people of 15 different nationalities, representing more than 10 study programmes. In less than a year, Makercie achieved our biggest accomplishment to date, winning the Remote Edition (2023) of the ERC as first time competitors.

Currently, we are taking on our next big challenge: the ERC On-Site formula, a separate competition where a rover, robotic arm and drone we design and build are used to complete Martian-inspired challenges. The team working on the competition challenges is made of three sub-teams: hardware, science and software. Those teams are further split into smaller teams, focusing on specific tasks, like the design of the outside of the rover, design of the electronics, writing code for the robotic arm, and many more. Since not many people have the chance to develop working experience in robotics or design during university, our team focuses on experiential learning. We create an environment within the team where the team members can learn by doing and gain the necessary experience through working in the team.