Mars Rover

Brandon and I went on a mini vacation which was actually a school trip. We traveled down to Hanksville, Utah with the BYU Mars Rover team for the University Rover Challenge. Brandon is part of the science team with the rover. His job was to find life on mars which he did. Well he found life in Hanksville, which is on Earth but it looks like Mars and is just as hard to find life there. Because of the Mars similarities to Hanksville, the Mars Society has an observatory there in the desert wasteland. Scientists who want to do Mars research can come for two weeks and live as if they were to live on Mars. Everything is set up as if the scientists were really living on Mars; they even have spacesuits to wear if they venture outside.

This year's competition had ten teams from all over the world come to compete with their rovers. There were four tasks that the rover had to perform. The team has to sit behind a tent and watch the rover through the camera mounted on the rover for all the tasks. The first task the rover participant in was a maintenance check. The rover drove out to the task site and had to perform simple tasks, such as flipping light switches and cleaning solar panels. The second task the rover had to collect a soil sample from beneath the surface to be analysed for traces of life. This is where Brandon came in. There is a picture of him in action in an article written by the Salt Lake Tribune. I provided a link below to the gallery.

Photo Gallery of the Mars Rover Event from the Salt Lake Tribune

The third task was terrain navigation. The rover had to go through an obstacle course created by the judges. The last task was astronaut assistance. This one was really fun to watch. We had to locate four different astronauts and drop a package with a three foot radius for them. I got to follow the rover around and watch it as it looked for the astronauts, judged the distance, and delivered the package.

The BYU Mars Rover Team

The trip was great. It was so fun to see the competition. BYU placed third overall. I loved being apart of the team, even though I had no knowledge to contribute. But hey, now I can say I've been to Mars....well sort of.