After finally getting some sleep last night – though not as much as we wanted – we got to the ERC competition grounds to complete our final event – the sample task. Luckily, our equipment was well-suited to the task, and we scored higher than any team up until that point! In particular, our drill for deep-soil sampling with a built in core-catcher, made us the only team to successfully retrieve a deep-soil sample.

We then had to write up a report on the samples we retrieved, and learned a bit about geology in the process.

After the task, we packed up the rover for shipment back to Canada, and headed into town for lunch.

We headed back to the competition site, and anxiously awaited the results with all of the other teams at the closing ceremony.

After hearing that McGill and #Next (of Poland) had placed in third and second respectively, we figured that we must have lost to both of them. It was absolutely unbelievable when they announced that USST had taken first place! There were a lot of interviews, photos, and general excitement. All of the work over the summer, and all of the work on Friday night had paid off! We also won some pretty exciting prizes, including 1000 USD and a 5000 PLN voucher, along with three Edison embedded computers.

We are so happy with our outcome, and we can’t wait to get some rest. We’re looking forward to continuing work on the rover, and have seen a lot of cool design ideas this weekend.

Thanks for checking in – looking forward to keeping our updates up in the future!