National Drone Competition Descends on Medicine Hat

Prairie Rose Public Schools was a hosting partner for the Aerial Evolution Association of Canada’s (AEAC) National Student Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Competition that started on May 9 and ran through till May 11th. Students from 15 universities across Canada arrived in Medicine Hat on the Thursday to compete, unloading all their equipment and drones at the South Alberta Collegiate building. 

“Helping to assist in hosting this event was a wonderful opportunity for Prairie Rose School Division,” said Superintendent Reagan Weeks. “Utilizing our building and bringing in students from 15 universities across the country gave us a chance to interact with students pursuing various engineering programs. It also provided us with an opportunity to look at some advanced drones and allowed our flight academy to interact with post-secondary students who they may aspire to emulate in the near future. I am very grateful to our staff who were able to pitch in to support the community as a whole and to support the competitors in their pursuit of addressing a problem that is very real in our area. One of the most exciting things was the competition challenge was designed around a very tangible problem our families face across Prairie Rose. It’s very exciting to see the cutting-edge work being done to address prairie fires.” 

The competition, which has been held for the past 15 years, provides teams with real-world challenges they must address using UAS technology. Teams were responsible for designing and building their own UAS system prototype to demonstrate during the competition and the task for this year was wildfire detection and response. Teams are comprised of students from various academic programs, providing them with the expertise needed to successfully design, construct and operate their UAVs.  

2025 marks the first year the competition was held in Western Canada and, with over 170 students competing this year, the first obstacle was transporting the team members and equipment. The Universite de Sherbrooke Miniature Aerial Vehicle team chose to drive their UAV and equipment to Medicine Hat, driving 24 hours on the first day and completing the trip after stopping in Kenora, Ontario for the night.  

On Friday, each team gave an oral presentation where they introduced their team, outlined their design process and introduced the UAV’s they would be using to complete the two tasks. On Saturday, the task was wildfire surveillance where the teams needed to find hot spots, simulated by LED emitters. On Sunday, after all teams were provided with the location of the hot spots, the task was to transport water to each one. The flying was all done at the Len Holden Memorial Airfield, home of the Medicine Hat Rc’ers. 

The Queen’s Aerospace Design Team’s presentation closed with Jake Campbell explaining to the audience the large number of crashes their fixed-winged UAV, the one they were going to use for wildfire surveillance, had sustained. The final crash, into a tree, resulted in the drone being destroyed. On Friday of the competition, the team was testing their water-drop UAV, which also crashed and wasn’t repairable, resulting in the team being unable to fly over the weekend.  

Campbell, who is entering his final year of electrical engineering at Queen’s University, said, “we spent the year designing two drones, so we had a fixed-wing drone and a few videos of it flying very well. When we initially started testing, our motor was undersized, so we weren’t getting enough lift. Our last crash put our airplane into a hundred pieces, it pretty much exploded. No fires or anything, we tried to prepare for that.” 

The general consensus amongst the judges was the wildfire surveillance task would be the easier of the two, but this didn’t end up being the case. There were three hot spots in the field, but the teams who did find hot spots only managed to find false ones.  

“Our day 1 survey task proved exceptionally difficult,” said lead judge Katrina Cecco at the awards banquet. “I never imagined when we were developing this con ops (concept of operations) over the summer as a team that the water bucket transport by drone would be easier than the basic aerial survey for which we gave you very obvious red balloons, visible from the flight line.” 

Several teams received awards at the banquet, with the energy in the room celebratory and enthusiastic throughout the evening. The winner of the competition was the University of Waterloo Robotics Group (WARG) who brought three drones to the competition and, in the words of one of the organizers, knocked it out of the park on Sunday by using two drones in sequence to transport water to the hot spots. Many of the teams are reforming after dissolving during the pandemic and WARG is no exception. Started in 1997, they are now in their fifth year as a renewed design team.  

WARG faced some tough issues on Saturday with interference and were unable to get all three drones in the air at the same time. The first drone went out and got lost and needed to be retrieved by truck. The team tried to get the other two going but only managed a short flight with the third drone. On Sunday, the team put one drone in the air, and had it hover in a waiting pattern while the second one lifted off, collected water, and took it away. Once it was clear of the water barrel, the waiting drone came in to collect water and this pattern was repeated multiple times until one of the drones decided to remain at the barrel, causing a congestion problem with the other drone.   

Second place went to the University of British Columbia Uncrewed Aircraft Systems design team. This team’s drone sustained a fire on Friday during a test flight, but they managed to still fly on Saturday, recording numerous hotspots, although all were false. On Sunday, they were the first team to fly and managed to make one successful water drop. Their UAV managed to fill with a second load of water before the drone toppled off the top of the barrel, causing it to lose all propellers and a camera.   

The Blackbird UAV team from Carleton University took third place. On Saturday, their UAV flew well, but the team only took it halfway across the field before circling to look for hotspots. On Sunday, they picked up water a couple of times before deciding to play it safe and brought their drone back for a successful landing.  

Phase 1 of the competition involves each team submitting design reports. The rules for the competition are set in the summer, student teams register in November, and the design reports are submitted in mid-January, providing a checkpoint for judges to see the progress teams have made. The reports are scored on different criteria, one being how they plan to attempt the two tasks. “The designs continue to evolve throughout the year and sometimes teams show up with drones that don’t quite look like what was in the report,” said lead judge Katrina Cecco. For Phase 1, first place went to the University of Victoria AERO team, second to the University of Waterloo Robotics Group third to the University of Toronto Aerospace Team. 

The Innovation award also went to the University of Toronto Aerospace Team, who made much progress in autonomous mode and impressed the judges with their display of intention and the great design they had for payload. 

McGill Drones and Vertical Flight Society took home the award for perseverance. When flying UAVs, a perfect flight plan rarely comes to fruition due to a variety of reasons, such as wind gusts, hardware fails, and software bugs. The judges saw all teams displaying impressive technical skills, creative problem solving and engineering excellence. The judges found McGill’s ability to adapt, improvise and overcome adversity made them exceptional and while the team didn’t have the smoothest journey throughout the competition, they kept persisting rather than giving up.  

The Judges Award went to the University of Victoria AERO team. The Judge’s Award is given out for any criteria, which changes from year to year, the committee has been impressed with on a particular team. “This year it goes to a team that excelled for many reasons,” Cecco told the audience at the banquet.  “They didn’t have an optimal flight performance as planned, but they were some of the most impressive in terms of preparation, organization of operations, including the use of checklists, safety features, modular and transportable design of their UAV, along with cool design innovations. Their water collection system was very fast and was suspended under the drone but could detach to allow for emergency landings. The amount of forethought and planning that went into this system and its operation was truly impressive for a team founded in 2022.” 

Polytechnique Montreal Zenith team took home the award for team spirit, which acknowledges a team’s impact on the overall spirit of the competition. The Zenith team stood out as keeping their spirits up and boosting the energy of all present after their drone crashed and damaged the water collection system. On Sunday, the team showed up with an improvised water collection system consisting of a water bottle and a golf ball. Following this success, they proceeded to keep the entire crowd out at the field energized, enthused and engaged.  

By Samantha Johnson, Prairie Rose Public Schools Content Writer