University of Toronto's Mars Rover for URC 2018

Who are we, and why are we here?

Robotics for Space Exploration (RSX) was co-founded in May of 2013 by passionate roboticists, space enthusiasts, and undergraduate engineering students. The recent explosion in interest in space exploration is what triggered the formation of RSX. With organizations working on Mars-bound spacecraft, teams around the world racing to win the Google Lunar X Prize, undergraduate students launching nano-satellites, and companies aspiring to mine asteroids, there has been a shift in the age-old paradigm that only a limited number of highly specialized organizations can partake in space exploration. Fortunately, many of our alumni have found jobs at companies like MDA and SpaceX to further their skills and thirst for space exploration.

Needless to say, space exploration is an exciting and challenging venture. The field of space engineering is growing at a rapid pace, and we hope that RSX will play a part in bolstering the interest in space and space engineering, and develop the next generation of skilled Canadian engineers who will be at the forefront of the space industry. By designing, building, and testing robots designed for planetary and lunar exploration, RSX competes in space engineering competitions around the world. At heart, our true passion is manned space exploration, and we hope to build robotic systems to facilitate it.

Our Projects and PCBs

High Power Drive Board

At the heart of our electrical system lies our high power drive board, which provides power to the most important part of our rover, the drive mechanism. This board uses custom made terminals to connect our high voltage battery bay to our motor drivers, while also using Hall-Effect sensors to monitor and record the power drawn from each motor, allowing us to individually control each one.

Low Power Board

Our lower power board is the power distribution system of the rover, splitting and regulating the voltage of individual PCBs in the rover. We take the raw battery voltage and step it down into several different signals that are connected via wires to regulators to step down the voltage for each component as needed.

Arm Control Board

Our arm board uses an integrated Beagle Bone, to control each of the six stepper motors that make up our rover's arm. As the logic of our motor drivers is 5V but the Beagle Bone is 3.3V we can overcome this issue by using SMD 3.3V to 5V logic converters to allow our Beagle Bone to interface with the stepper motors.

Words to our Sponsors

RSX sponsors will support an ambitious and multi-disciplinary undergraduate design team at Canada’s top engineering school. RSX is also supported and affiliated with UTIAS; Canada’s leading aerospace research institute. With your support, we will compete in international competitions and offer unprecedented learning experiences to our members all while promoting and nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit of innovation, creativity and ambition within Canada.

PCBWay, as a sponsor, will provide RSX with the necessary resources to complete the full design and manufacturing of our fourth generation Martian Rover, which will compete in the URC 2018, ERC (European Rover Challenge) 2018, and our CanSat system which will compete at the 2018 CanSat competition. But these competitions are only the beginning! With your support, RSX hopes to design and build many more robots that will participate in other competitions around the world, representing UofT, Canada, and most importantly, you. Your funding will contribute significantly to our outreach activities and SEEK as we aim to expand the competition very rapidly this year by involving high school students as well. Sponsoring RSX is an opportunity to learn more about over five thousand bright undergraduate and graduate engineering students at the University of Toronto. Furthermore, as a sponsor you will receive a multitude of perks such as placing your logo on our website, rover, and all promotional material, invitations to exclusive demonstration events and tours, signed team pictures, t-shirts, patches and much more. Our sponsorship options are listed in the following section. We thank you very much for your invaluable support!