ESPOL’s ASME student chapter in Guayaquil, Ecuador, has been selected to compete in the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) 2027, in the university remote-control division, which includes 21 teams worldwide. NASA announced the selected teams on 8 October.
The project began in early 2026 under chapter president Alfonso Lombeida and mentor Eduardo Castillo. The ten-member team, mostly mechanical engineering students, will build from scratch a rover that receives radio commands and autonomously takes photos, applies colour filters and calculates distances.
The competition runs from 21 to 24 April 2027 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
