A small town of Jasionka, near Rzeszow, Poland will serve as a battleground of red-brown sand and dust for Mars rovers trying to complete numerous complex tasks. The event, known as the European Rover Challenge (ERC), accompanied by the first ever European Robotics Congress, will be held on Sept. 10-13.

Organized by the Polish branch of Mars Society, ERC is the Europe's biggest robotics competition for college and university students. The goal of this contest is to design and build the most successful Martian rover prototype and use it to compete various tasks like obtaining samples of soil, delivering objects from one location to another, rover navigation and maintenance activities.

According to the competition's guidelines, a rover participating in the challenge must be a stand-alone, mobile platform with a mass limit of 50 kilograms. The rover's maximum speed should be not higher than 3 km/h and its cost cannot exceed 15,000 Euros.

Previous editions in 2014 and 2015, that were attended by over 50,000 spectators, took place in Podzamcze, near Kielce, Poland, some 150 kilometers away from this year's location.

However, the European Space Foundation, which manages the ERC event, decided to relocate the competition to Podkarpackie Voivodeship (one of the regions in Poland), due to the strong support of local authorities and the regional long-standing traditions of aviation and aerospace.

"Podkarpackie Voivodeship is Poland's center of aviation, associated with the aerospace and space industry. It should be added that a rover from this region was lately very successful in the University Rover Challenge, defending the title.

"Moreover, one of the region's priorities is the support for youth enterprises and economic development, in particular by investing in innovation and building strong business relationships. Therefore, it can be said that ERC came home," Lukasz Wilczynski, European Space Foundation President, told Astrowatch.net.

ERC 2016 attracted more than 400 young constructors from all over the world. Besides the host country, Bangladesh, Egypt, Canada and India, have provided a strong input, sending several teams each.

"Speaking of India, this country wants to be the driving force of space exploration. They have already proved that a mission to Mars can be accomplished cheaply and effectively, thus we can see a growing emphasis on space robotics in the region," Wilczynski said.

The ERC contest will be complemented by the European Robotics Congress and an exhibition zone. The congress will include a variety of presentations and demonstrations about the main principles and objectives of Poland's space strategy and will be held to highlight the importance of the four-day ERC event.

The exhibition zone will host a series of scientific and technological demonstrations where participants, among others, will be able to learn the basics of robotics or use a flight simulator.

"The event will also serve as a tremendous opportunity for exchanging experiences and industrial knowledge between the business and science sectors and create a community of people open to challenges that require unconventional thinking," said Wladyslaw Ortyl, Marshall of the Podkarpackie Region.