The Mission

The purpose of Team Polar is to aid Antarctic research to achieve a more sustainable world, especially during the height of the climate crisis. The vision of our team is to achieve this task by being open source and enlightening people to be more environment-oriented than profit-oriented. The mission of our team is to help the people (researchers) who share our vision and try to understand the secrets of this continent for the welfare of both humans and Earth. To do so we are developing a solar-powered, autonomous vehicle that makes use of the 24h sunlight during Antarctic summer.

The Challenge 

Our team is trying to solve the problem of executing research on Antarctica. Antarctica is the 5th biggest continent on Earth and conceals many unrevealed mysteries that would illuminate researchers about Earth's past and future. Currently, researchers do their best to understand climate change and the ice melting phenomenon. Although they have one major challenge, which is technology. Currently, the main mean of travel is by using old sherp-type vehicles which are kerosene driven and human controlled. This limits greatly the research possibilities as researchers need to go with multiple trailers full of provisions to reach a further point in the continent. That is the reason why only 25% of the continent is explored.

The Solution

Next to the hard logistics, traveling over the ice is extremely dangerous as there are hidden glaciers and obstacles which can harm the driver and equipment. That is why Team Polar is developing a solar-powered, autonomous vehicle that takes the human factor out, and is cheaper and more sustainable than kerosene exhibit research on the continent. These features greatly fit with user requirements as our vehicle provides them with an alternative for researching on further terrains without losing time, money, and endangering personnel.

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