Twelve Y12 pupils put in an incredible 12 hour shift on Saturday 2nd December for the UK Space Design Competition at Imperial College London. This is a fantastic challenge that saw them designing a hypothetical mining base on the moon! Read below reports from Freya and William:
On Saturday the 2nd of December, 12 lower sixth Physics students travelled to Imperial College London to take part in the UK Space Design Competition regional heat. The point of this competition was to give students a taster of working in the space industry. When we arrived, we were sorted into a designated company, Condor, with four other schools. We were then given a brief detailing specifics of our “mission”; we were to design a settlement on the moon, called Balderol, with the main function of repairing moon-harvesters. The brief detailed different points we were required to cover, for example we had to plan the design and materials of structural elements exposed to lunar conditions. To complete the range of points on this brief (RFP) in such a short time period, we decided to split up into sections within our company, under the guidance of our elected President. These sections included Structural, Operations, Missions, and Human engineering, as well as Marketing and Business. We worked in these groups throughout the day, whilst collaborating with other teams to meet specific requirements. For example, I had the opportunity to focus on Human engineering, in which I worked closely with Operations to plan the food production and storage (which is surprisingly difficult on the hostile environment of the moon) to ensure correct nutrition for our hypothetical 200 settlers.
After we had spent six hours working on a variety of tasks within our company, we collated our hard work onto a presentation. We had a pizza break for dinner, and then went to one of Imperial’s lecture halls for the final stage of the day. Six members of our team presented our ideas to a panel of judges, who were very experienced in different areas of Physics, and then listened to the other company’s presentations. The judges then deliberated and announced a winner who have the opportunity of progressing onto the national round. Although we did not manage to win with our stellar presentation, this was a fantastic opportunity to take part in a hands-on activity which, in many ways, mimicked the reality of working in the space industry. We also learnt some weird but wonderful facts throughout the day (including how we can use biomimicry of butterfly wings for optimised energy production in solar panels) and developed valuable skills, such as working in a team environment and breaking down a complex and unfamiliar problem in order to meet a deadline.
Freya, Year 12
On Saturday the 2nd of December, I was lucky enough to participate in the UK Space Design Challenge, a competition about designing a settlement in space. Twelve lower sixth Physicists from Emanuel, and Mr Martin, embarked on a quest destined for the stars. We arrived at Imperial College’s Blackett Laboratory at 08:30, determined to show the greatness of Emanuel School. After a briefing from the UK Space Design team, we started to build Balderol, a repair facility on the moon. This repair facility was focused on the servicing of Harvesters, large robots that mined the moon’s surface.
We worked with four other schools, creating a passionate team of 50 engineers. Combining our knowledge, we set out to build the best moon base possible. There was a plethora of leadership roles that we could pursue, such as the President of Condor, the company we embodied. They ensured that we were meeting deadlines and working well together. Next in command were the heads of engineering and business, who both ensured their respective departments were operating as efficiently as possible. The rest of us were divided into five engineering departments, each designing different key systems for Balderol. For example, whilst the human department worked on ensuring astronauts had a nutritious, balanced meal, the operations department ensured that no lunar regolith (a fancy word for moon dust) entered the moon base. There was lots of collaboration between departments, with most criteria needing the specialties of all departments to meet.
Having worked tirelessly from 10 to 5, we were rewarded with pizza. After this, we headed to the lecture theatre where we were finally ready to pitch Balderol to the panel of investors. Each contractor had 15 minutes to present their presentation, before they were grilled by the investors.
During this trip, I learnt how to better communicate with people I’d never spoken to before about things I knew little about. I found competing in the UK Space Design incredibly rewarding, as I was learning and collaborating with others. Additionally, working together at Condor represented what it would be like to work for an engineering firm in the future. This included doing research about the way certain things work, how many parts would be needed, and the most cost-effective way to implement these parts. Finally, I learnt that doing things in a simple manner is often far better than trying to overengineer something, as it leads to confusion from everyone.
Despite not being awarded the contract, I still found participating in it extremely rewarding. I hope that I am allowed to participate again next year, as it was a lot of fun.
William – Year 12
