Space Engineering Challenge by UPT

📍 Universitatea Politehnica Timișoara, Facultatea de Automatică și Calculatoare

🚀 Welcome to the Challenge

The Space Engineering Challenge by UPT is a national competition that invites high school and university students to design and build advanced robotic systems for space exploration scenarios.

Each year, participants tackle new environments — from planetary caves to orbital paths or icy terrains — solving real-world engineering problems inspired by modern space missions.

Whether it flies, drives, maps, or samples — your robot will help write the next chapter of space exploration.

🏆 Qualification results

Here you can find the results after evaluation of the applications to the 2025 Space Engineering Contests

🎯 Why Join?

Explore the intersection of robotics, science, and space engineering
Gain hands-on experience in embedded systems, robotics, and navigation
Work in a team and learn from top experts and mentors
Showcase your creativity and skills on a national platform
Compete for trophies, awards, and industry recognition

📅 2025 Edition: Subsurface Exploration Robots

This year’s mission: Design a mobile rover capable of navigating underground cave-like environments.
Your robot will face challenges such as:

Terrain mapping
Low-light navigation
Terrain traversal
Object detection and sampling

👩‍🚀 Who Can Participate?

High School Section: Teams of 2–3 students (enrolled in grades IX to XII) + adult mentor
University Section: Teams of 2–3 students (bachelor level) + academic/mentor supervisor

The official language of the competition is English.

🏆 Awards & Recognition

Teams compete for:

Best Overall Project
Best Engineering Design
Best Scientific Understanding
Best Project Management
Special Mentions

Certificates of participation will be awarded to all on site participants and mentors

🗓️ Key Dates

June 15: Challenge Launch & Registration Opens
~~September 15~~ September 19: Application Deadline
~~September 16-November 20~~ September 22-November 20: Projects development
November 21-23: On-site competition and awards