Red rover, red rover, NASA calls Queen’s students over

Nine engineering students gear up for NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Image by: Allie Moustakis
Q-HERC is the only Canadian university team selected to compete this year.

With molten aluminum, 3D-printed wheels, and sheer pedal power, a team of Queen’s engineering students are racing toward a challenge that’s out of this world—literally.

A team of Queen’s engineering students has taken on the challenge of designing and building a human-powered rover to compete in NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) in April 2025. Queen’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge team (Q-HERC) is the only team from a Canadian university selected to participate this year. Q-HERC will compete in the human-powered category, solely relying on pedaling power to ignite their rover and navigate a course designed to mimic the rough and uneven surface of the moon.

“The competition has been around for 31 years. It was originally called the Great Moon Buggy Race and was designed to simulate the challenges that the Apollo mission would see when putting a rover on the moon,” Bronwyn Faulkner, Sci ’26, and Q-HERC team lead said in an interview with The Journal.

The Apollo mission was a NASA space program in the 1960s and 70s that aimed to land humans on the moon and bring them back safely.

Q-HERC’s journey began with a last-minute decision to apply.

“We thought going to the competition was a bit far-fetched. It seemed difficult because we had to put together a proposal with preliminary designs and a budget in such a short time. But since we were all on internships and had a bit of time, we decided to go for it,” Faulkner said.

Despite the tight deadline, the team completed their application and submitted it last September. To their surprise, they received an acceptance letter about a month later.

“We started with three people and quickly realized that was way too much work to split between us. Now, we have a team of nine, with seven active members focusing on different aspects of the rover,” Faulkner said.

The rest of the team is made up of Brandon Lewis, Bridget Curtis, Dani Zhao, DJ Vandesande, and Victoria Burazin, all Sci ’25. Also on the roster are Ava Kelly, Sci ’26, Antonio Volkanoski, Sci ’27, and Danielle Noronha, HealthSci ’25.

According to Faulkner, the team focused on an efficient and lightweight design. One of the key innovations is a rover frame cast from molten aluminium, an unconventional decision driven by both cost and performance.

“It [aluminum casting] allows us to create custom, topology-optimized components that keep the rover lightweight while saving us about fifty percent in cost compared to buying off-the-shelf parts. It also provides a great learning opportunity for our manufacturing team,” Zhao said in an interview with The Journal.

As the team progresses through the final months before the competition, they anticipate challenges in integrating all the rover’s subsystems.

“Each person on the team works on a subsystem. The biggest challenge will be making sure everything fits together once we start manufacturing,” Zhao said.

Beyond technical constraints, the team has also had to navigate resource limitations.

“Due to the limited resources of our team, research and development are focused on casting the chassis and designing the non-pneumatic wheels, since these are the most non-standard challenges we’re facing,” Zhao said, noting NASA requires the rover’s wheels be completely designed and built by students without using air-filled tires.

“There are a million possible solutions out there, but we have to find one that works with our design and budget constraints. We found inspiration from other universities’ past Martian rover projects and decided on thermoplastic polyurethane—a 3D-printable material with incredible elasticity that provides dampening,” Zhao said

Beyond engineering, Q-HERC is required to complete a significant community outreach component. NASA mandates each team engage with at least 250 students through educational science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) activities.

In the coming weeks, the team will be presenting to 250 elementary school students in Alberta, teaching them about careers in space exploration.

“Leading STEM activities for large groups is really exciting. It’s not just an isolated competition, we’re trying to spread excitement and knowledge about STEM to students of all ages,” Faulkner said. “The goal isn’t just to complete an outreach quota. It’s about inspiring the next generation and showing them that they don’t have to be astronauts to work in the space sector.”

While the immediate goal is to perform well in the competition, the team hopes to establish a legacy for future Queen’s engineering students.

“We want to encourage students to apply in future years. Especially for students on internships, this is a great opportunity to work on a project and use company connections in a way that most students wouldn’t think of,” Faulkner said.

As the competition draws closer, Q-HERC hopes to increase funding efforts.

“We’re documenting our journey on our Instagram. We’re also still crowdsourcing our funding and we’re looking for support from the public. We have a GoFundMe in our bio, and every little bit helps,” Zhao said.

Tags

fundraising, innovation, NASA, Queen's Engineering

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