CRATER – Mars Robotics from the ETH Lecture Hall
More than 50 ETH students are developing an autonomous Mars rover at CRATER – and have taken it from concept to working prototype in less than nine months. At Scientifica, you can experience the rover and drive it yourself on the test track.
Designing, building, and testing a Mars rover in nine months: The student association CRATER has pulled off this feat. It developed and built a complete rover and integrated it into a fully functional system—from the chassis and electronics to the robotic arm and a drilling system, all the way to autonomous navigation and an accompanying drone capable of conducting reconnaissance missions.
With their Mars rover, the ETH students will compete in the European Rover Challenge (ERC) 2026 in Krakow, Poland, in early September. At the ERC, Europe’s top student robotics and space teams compete by carrying out a planetary exploration mission on a specially designed, Mars-like test site.
Developing the rover gives students the opportunity to directly apply the knowledge they’ve gained in the classroom, take on responsibility early on, gain experience, collaborate on a real-world complex system, and develop further projects in the fields of mobility and space exploration.
At Scientifica, you can experience the rover up close, explore its various systems, and learn how it was developed. On the test site, you can even drive the 75-kilogram rover yourself under the guidance of the team.
See firsthand how knowledge, teamwork, and a lot of tinkering come together to create a piece of Mars robotics.
