UK Space Design Competition

Courtesy of UK Space Design Competition, 2015

I got the privilege to accompany a group of A level students in the semi-final of the UK Space Design Competition. Their brilliant video entry (which was all their independent work), won them a place at the semi-finals. The competition was fierce and it was a huge achievement for these talented students to get to the semi-finals of a national competition! The competition is designed to allow students to experience life in industry. Teams are given a set of requirements for a space settlement and are given 24 hours to design their space settlement before displaying their ideas to a panel of experts. The residential competition was held at Imperial College and a chance to earn a place at the international finals at a NASA Space Center was up for grabs!

Courtesy of Photography © Bluefax Studios

The students were, Mokrane Berboucha of Lampton School, Roshan Hansla of Heathlands School and Leon Seeamber and Parus Kargathra of Heston Community School.

The first day of the competition involved twenty hours of solid research and hard work in designing a space settlement. The students were working with around 45 other students from various other schools for a company group named Grumbo Aerospace, thus communication was vital. The other company groups were: Vulture Aviation, Rockdonnell, Dougeldyne Fletchel.

After 20+ hours of research, Grumbo Aerospace was ready to present in front of the judges which included: Anita Gale, an Associate Technical Fellow and senior project engineer at Boeing; Jeremy Curtis, Head of Education at the UK Space Agency; Dr Randall Perry, founder of the UKSDC and a senior research investigator at the Impacts and Astromaterials Research Centre at Imperial College London; and Helen Oliver, a research associate at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.

The competition was high and Grumbo Aerospace just fell short of winning, earning themselves second place in the UKSDC National Final. This was no small feat and the students should be very proud of themselves and their achievement! They even got to go away with a snazzy certificate and a brain full of space knowledge!

If you would like to know more about the competition or even enter, click here. All the very best of luck!