An effort to compete in the Mars Society's University Rover Challenge!

About Team Argon

Team Argon is part of the University of Michigan-Dearborn's Intelligent Systems Club. The goal of the team is to design and build a rover similar to the ones NASA sent to Mars. The goal is to compete in the Mars Society's University Rover Challenge. While a design flaw prevented the rover from competing at competition, Team Argon plans to improve the robot to hopefully compete in future competition(s).

My role with the team was Science Lead. The rover is expected to take images of stratigraphy with its camera, as well as make measurements of the soil with a science instrument. Part of my role is to find geologic information about the competition site in Utah, as well as to make maps of the region. This is important to me because while the competition requirements will most likely be changed every year, the competition site should not, so the information I acquire and use can be used and improved by the team long after I graduate.

My Contributions

Elevation Maps:

The team of engineers wanted to know the general elevation of the area. My GIS professor mentioned continuous DEM data for the was available for the entire US, so I decided to download it and make elevation maps of the competition site. While the data has very low resolution and I'm above the maximum raster resolution, these maps are still useful to the team.

The map on the left is continuous elevation data, while the map on the right is elevation contoured at 5-meter intervals. The color schemes were chosen with maximum readability in mind, as the target audience for these maps have no interest in things like cartographic symbology rules, etc. I am happy with how these maps turned out and I look forward to doing more for this team!

soil maps:

Since a requirement for rovers at the competition is to collect a sub-surface sample with the hope that it contains life (or the conditions suitable for life), it is important to know what type of soil is present in the area where the competition takes place. For this reason, I downloaded SSURGO soil data for the region and made the above maps. The left map is an image designed for me to use in a presentation, while the right map is a "deliverable" map.

I have found that the red areas in the map contain a soil type that should have a higher likelihood for the team to get the results they want. I hope this finding will be made to good use by Team Argon!!!

updated elevation maps:

After I made the soil maps, I decided to update the elevation maps I made last year. My map-making skills have dramatically increased since the time I made the original maps, and I have made some necessary changes. For instance, when I made the original maps, I did not yet know how to digitize points or create buffers! I have now done both for these maps, to only include the competition area instead of the entire region surrounding the site.

I have also included the area with preferable soil on each map. These maps show that the rover could have to traverse through steep terrain to reach its intended target. Team Argon is up to the challenge!!!