Join the Team

The 2024 recruitment period has ended

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Which Sub-team Is Right For you?

Read more about the sub-teams below and find out more about what skills will make you an ideal candidate.

At Monash Nova Rover, we strive to build a supportive learning environment by focusing on upskilling members. We prioritise applicants who are passionate and keen to learn, and highly encourage all to apply, regardless of skill level.

Adaptive Payload

As the rules of the competition events change drastically each year, our payloads continue to change each design cycle.

The Adaptive Payload (AP) subteam is in charge of the Construction and Excavation Task at ARCh and the Extreme Delivery Task at URC. In previous years, this subteam has worked on payloads such as the Tile Placer, Scraper, Drone (Galah) and a debris collection payload.

The nature of the engineering behind these payloads are as follows:

  • The Tile Placer included a forklift mechanism along with carbon fibre tiles to set up a stable base on the lunar surface.

  • The Scraper had a 4 in 1 bucket mechanism to excavate regolith and rocks.

  • The drone was developed to assist the base station and rover in delivering essential payloads to an astronaut.

Required Skills & Knowledge

  • Any CAD experience such as Solidworks, Onshape

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

  • Hand tool and power tool experience

  • 3D printing experience

  • Personal mechanical projects

Autonomous

The Autonomous team develops the rovers autonomous system, enabling the the completion of the Autonomous tasks at the Australian and University Rover Challenges, and improving the rovers ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. Team members will work on a wide range of problems including; developing the teams simulation capabilities, integrating sensors into the software stack, developing our mapping and localisation systems and algorithms, defining complex behaviour through behaviour trees.

Recruits will gain hands on experience developing autonomous systems and integrating them with a real rover, and will learn how to use ROS2 (mostly with C++, some python) and accompanying packages integrate and debug sensors and systems.

  • Experience in at least 1 programming language (Python, C++ preferred)

  • Git - Version Control, ideally with experience in a team setting

Required Skills & Knowledge

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

  • Linux (any distribution but NixOS is highly desired)

  • Nix (pkg manager)

  • ROS2, ROS2 Control, ROS2 Navigation2

  • Gazebo (ROS simulator)

  • C++

  • Experience with autonomous systems

Here are some resources to get started on learning the skills mentioned above:

With the Arm subteam being a subteam that covers such a diverse range of tasks, there is something for everyone here - whether you want to stick to one of the three main sectors (mechanical, electrical, software) or go into a project that integrates all of them to a varying degree!

At Arm, for the mechanical enthusiasts out there, you will have the opportunity to learn basic metal fabrication, which can then take you to manual metal machining (lathes and mills), and even to the CNCs! Furthermore, as Arm plays a vital role in 1 out of the 4 and 2 out of the 4 tasks in ARCh and URC, its functionality and design decisions are heavily driven by operator feedback. Here at Arm, the skill of collaboration and being able to openly take feedback is highly sought after and is a skill that you will embrace over time! On the topic of collaboration, as Arm is such a diverse subteam that reaches almost every sector of engineering, we heavily collaborate with the other subteams such as chassis, electrical and software! The opportunity to further go into robotic arm control and inverse kinematics is also there when you join the Arm subteam!

Arm

Required Skills & Knowledge

  • Solidworks (or any other CAD software)

  • 3D printing

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

  • ROS2

  • Metal fabrication

  • Manual machining (lathe/mill)

  • CNC

  • Inverse kinematics & software control

Business and Media

Members of the business team learn how to pitch projects to industry sponsors - with practice, recruits can expect to become adept at catering a pitch to a specific sponsor. With image manipulation, recruits can expect to massively improve their ability to visually communicate information through photography and design after practising with experienced members. Finally, with video editing, after helping with large team projects such as the ARCh DFT and URC SAR videos in addition to miscellaneous social media videos, recruits can expect to be massively upskilled in video production.

Anywhere from framing their subject, writing/storyboarding and editing their final product, recruits will become competent and able to complete these tasks on their own. This will prepare you with the skills and confidence to communicate professionally across a range of mediums when you enter the industry. Similarly, after involvement in a range of projects, individuals can learn to work independently and/or run projects that may include up to 10 other members.

Required Skills & Knowledge

  • None required

  • Video production & editing experience: Adobe Premiere / Da Vinci Resolve (Free!) / Blender (Free!)

  • Design experience: Canva / Photoshop / Illustrator / Inkscape (Free!)

  • Basic experience with cameras

  • Confidence in public speaking

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

Chassis

The Chassis sub-team researches, develops, and validates the core mechanical rover systems. We strive to optimise these systems to handle rougher and steeper terrain, whilst minimising weight and maintaining ease of operation for our drivers. It's our responsibility to ensure that the interface between the core systems and other payloads, such as the arm and science payloads, is simple and streamlined.

We are looking for passionate team members looking to further develop CAD and 3D printing skills, become involved in the machining/fabrication of rover components, development and maintenance of gearboxes and core rover.

Required Skills & Knowledge

  • CAD experience (e.g. Solidworks, Fusion 360, Onshape)

  • Hand tool and power tool experience

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

  • 3D printing

  • Personal engineering/mech/mechatronic projects

Electrical

The electrical subteam is responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of all the rover's electrical systems. Battery management, motor drivers, and communication hardware are all managed by us, as well as any electrical assistance the other subteams require! The stuff we do includes circuit board design and assembly, troubleshooting and battery management. If you're interested in one or many of these areas, and have a good work ethic and time to dedicate to the team, we'd love to hear from you!

Required Skills & Knowledge

  • Basic circuit knowledge, e.g. ENG1013

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

  • Circuit Analysis

  • Soldering and crimping experience

  • Embedded firmware development

  • PCB design experience (kicad, altium)

  • Microcontroller experience - STM32, dsPIC, Arduino.

Science

The science team comprises of both engineering students (payload engineers) and science students (payload scientists).

Payload engineers - Mechanical and Mechatronics

These members are responsible for development of the systems on the science payload. This includes the design, fabrication and integration for a variety of different mechanisms, including sample excavation and processing systems, various scientific analysis instruments, and the actuation of each subsystem.

Payload scientists - Analytical Chemist and Geologist

Payload scientists are crucial in the development and evaluation of the scientific experiments performed by the payload systems. This will include the validation and testing of chemical assays as well as assisting with the development and experimental interpretation of custom spectrometers for in-situ detection of life and water. The science team is also looking for a geologist who has a special interest in space and astrobiology. They will aid the team with developing systems for rock identification and use their knowledge of geological processes to search for evidence of life in a martian context.

Recommended Skills & Knowledge (payload engineers)

  • Any CAD software

  • Hand tool experience

  • 3D printing experience

  • Basic electrical prototyping skills (e.g., soldering, using motors/sensors)

  • Understanding of basic mechanical principles (e.g., loads, moments)

Recommended Skills & Knowledge (payload scientists)

  • Understanding of analytical chemistry and knowledge of different analytical techniques

  • Knowledge of biochemistry (e.g., proteins, enzymes)

  • Ability to plan, execute and document scientific experiments, including testing procedures and spectral analysis

  • Knowledge/interest in astrobiology

  • Knowledge/interest in lunar and martian geology

Software

The Software Subteam is responsible for developing and maintaining all the software systems used to run and operate the rover. This includes both on-rover systems that move various types of motors, take readings, and operate custom-designed electronic components and off-rover systems that input control, receive data and display rover state. This also includes maintaining the rover's Linux operating system, package architecture, compatibility for miscellaneous hardware, radio communications, base station computers and much more. Our team's projects primarily focus on the following components:

  • Adding features to the Graphical User Interface GUI using React and Typescript.

  • Creating or editing ROS2 nodes used to communicate between control interfaces (GUI, Gamepad, etc.) to the rover's microcontrollers. This includes arm, drive, sensors, actuators, pumps, light controls and so much more. These are written in either Python or C++.

  • Maintaining software packages and compatibility with new and existing rover hardware. This utilises Nix, Linux and hardware skills to create a reliable software environment.

Overarching projects work on improving our software architecture, code maintainability and migrating to utilise industry-accepted coding packages.

Required Skills & Knowledge

  • Python - Most of our code is written in Python so basic competency is important. It is a very simple language to learn.

  • VS Code or similar code IDE.

  • Git - Version Control, ideally with experience in a team setting

Recommended Skills & Knowledge

  • Linux - Any level of experience is useful.

  • ROS2 - This is the library we use to communicate and control the rover, it is available for Python and C++. No prior experience is required.

  • Nix / NixOS - This is our package management system and OS. No prior experience is required.

  • React/JavaScript / TypeScript - Used to develop our Graphical User Interface GUI that controls the rover. Experience with web frameworks is ideal.

  • C++ / C - Any experience is useful, we use this much less than Python.

  • Microcontrollers(Arduino) - Its the Software Team's responsibility to interface with, review and manage the code created by electrical.

Here are some resources to get started on learning the skills mentioned above:

We look forward to seeing your application!