This month marks the 10th anniversary of a dream that started years earlier as a high school student passionate about space and robotics, a journey that began with a wild idea, a bold email, and a lot of determination. In my junior year of university, I co-founded a team to participate in international planetary rover challenges—a first for Turkey. But before I dive into the details, let me take you back to where it all began.
Back in 2011, I stumbled upon a website called spacehack.org it introduced me to the idea of planetary rover competitions, and while it seemed like an impossible dream at the time, it planted a seed. Fast forward a few years, and during university, I finally worked up the courage to turn that dream into a reality. Barış Balcı and I opened the idea with our professor Ozkan Bebek with a simple idea: What if we build a planetary rover and compete internationally?
And that's how it all began.
Being the first in Turkey to attempt something like this came with unique challenges. At the time, our country didn't have a space agency, a space program, or even a community of teams building robots at this scale. Even explaining the concept to potential sponsors was a Herculean endeavour. They were used to seeing sponsorship proposals from the teams that attended the solar car races or similar competitions. How could we convince them to fund a robot designed to simulate planetary exploration? Thankfully, our university president, Esra Gencturk and our Dean, Tanju Erdem believed in us and gave us crucial support when we needed it most (it wasn't just approving some budgets; e.g. I think you don't every day see a university president invite an entire student team to a farewell dinner and order a custom cake to commemorate occasion). Without that trust and support, this story might've ended before it began.
Looking back, some of our "disasters" have become my favourite memories. Let me share a few:
The Heaviest Rover Ever: We finished our first rover's design, only to realize it was 50% heavier than the competition's limits—just days before a significant milestone report. I worked nearly non-stop, resizing the entire robot, changing bearings, adapting motors, and (very reluctantly) telling the electronics team that now they had half the space to work with. It was chaos, but somehow, we pulled it off.
The Leaning Rover: In our first year at the competition, we forgot to tighten a few screws. The result? The rover tipped over dramatically, falling to one side and getting a negative score from that run. At the time, it felt like the end of the world. Now? It's a story we can't stop laughing about.
Almost Burning Down the Lab: Let's just say things don't always go as planned in hardware development. I'll leave the details vague to protect the guilty person/people! :-D
Building the rover taught me more than any classroom could. It showed me the value of co-design—where mechanical, electronics engineers and computer scientists work simultaneously, solving problems together. Due to the competition rules, we couldn't afford industrial solutions, so we had to innovate. Personally, I learned that no one can know everything that makes a robot. As the team lead, my role became about bringing people together, fostering collaboration, and ensuring everyone could give their best (and also mostly yelling or sending passive-aggressive emails in the middle of the night :-D).
I only led the team for 2 years (and was an advisor for another half), but the team has continued for a decade. They've built new robots, welcomed hundreds of students, and created their own successes and stories. The credit for that continuity goes to my professor, Ozkan Bebek, who has been the team's advisor all these years. Without his unwavering support, this legacy wouldn't exist.
And what a legacy it's become! When we started, there were no other teams like ours in Turkey. Now, there's a community—teams sharing experiences, laughing together, competing fiercely, and lifting each other up. Even more exciting, Turkey now hosts its own annual rover competition Anatolian Rover Challenge, attracting teams from around the world. What began as a dream to compete internationally has grown into something that brings the world to Turkey. Kudos to the organizers for making this possible!
As early as 2015, right after returning from the competition, we started visiting high schools, showing students our rover and sharing what this competition was all about. For us, it wasn't just about building robots but also inspiring others to dream big and explore new frontiers.
Now, nearly nine years later, I can't help but wonder if some of those students went on to join rover or robotics teams at their universities or even started their own. Maybe they're building bigger and better robots today, pushing boundaries we couldn't have imagined back then. If we managed to light that spark, even for a handful of students, then those visits were worth every moment.
On top of that, we also managed to turn our efforts into academic contributions. While they weren't published in the world's top journals, we were proud to share our learnings through papers, highlighting the work we did, the challenges we faced, and the solutions we developed. For a student team with limited resources, these publications were a significant milestone.
This journey transformed me, turning me from a passionate student into an engineer. It taught me resilience, teamwork, and the power of dreaming big. To any of my younger future colleagues reading this: if you have a dream that feels impossible, take that first step. You'll stumble, you'll laugh, and you'll grow in ways you can't imagine. Reflect on your journey, appreciate the lessons learned, and remember, 'It was never the destination but always the journey.'
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has been part of this journey—Ozkan Bebek, my incredible teammates, the students who continued this legacy, and the many people I'll tag below who played vital roles. Together, we've proven that even the wildest dreams can take root and grow. Your contributions have been invaluable, and I am deeply appreciative of each and every one of you.
Here's to the next 10 years of dreaming, building, and breaking new ground. 🚀
PS: Thanks to the European Rover Challenge team, we met with an astronaut who walked on the moon for real, in flesh and blood.
Gürkan Sercan Aydoğdu Ali Yasar Begüm Sunal Çakan Emre Kağan Cicek Deniz Kurt Mert Hayta Emircan Zincircioglu Alp Yıldırım Ebru Kılıç-Bebek Nisan Kuzuluk Darçın Mehmet Polat KÜNTÜZ Mustafa Derman Suavi Yildirim Oguzhan DALGIC
Anyone who I forgot to tag on this post, please forgive me