The Martian landscape of Drumheller was used to the fullest last weekend as the first Canadian International Rover Challenge took on the hills.
The University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team has organized the weekend. There was also a team from Carleton University in Ottawa and observers from the Missouri Institute of Design and Technology.
“The premise of the competition is there is an establishment of habitation on an extraterritorial body, in this case, Mars, and the university teams have to design a rover that assists that establishment,” explains Justin Gerein, a member of the Saskatchewan club.
The rover teams were challenged with tasks such as retrieval of items in rough terrain or simulating prospecting for things such as resources or signs of life.
This is the first year of the Canadian event. Many of the students have traveled to other competitions including the United Kingdom, and the premier University Rover Challenges at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.
Gerein said Drumheller is well suited for the competition.
“It offers more opportunities for terrain that would be like on Mars; the dry, the rough, the iron rich soils,” he said. “We could have gone to the Badlands of Saskatchewan and found similar terrain, but there is infrastructure here to support attendance.”
The challenges took place throughout Saturday and Sunday at Midland Provincial Park and McMullen Island. Spectators came out to check out the action.

About 40 came out to hear Alberta Progressive Conservative (PC) leader Jason Kenney on his campaign for unity of the Wildrose and PC Party. 

Kenney hosted the meeting at the Canalta Jurassic Hotel Wednesday evening, July 12. It was also the final day for Albertans to join the PC party to vote in the referendum on unity July 22 and Kenney told the Mail there is strong momentum leading up to the decision day.
“ The last I heard we have sold over 2,000 today. This is unprecedented,” he said. “We will have sold in the last week over 7,000 memberships.”
The ultimate goal for unity is to defeat the Alberta NDP Party, who, according to Kenney, is chasing away investment, but also changing the political culture of the province partly through the education system.
“If they can change the political culture of the province that has been the beating heart of conservative values; If they can still that beating heart then they can change Canada forever. This is a fight not just for Alberta, but of national consequence.”
He feels there is good momentum for a unified party that can make a change.
“We are about to see a small political earthquake that will shake the NDP out of office,” he said.