Last weekend, ten Kingham Hill School pupils spent the weekend at Imperial College London competing with 23 other schools in the National finals of the UK Space Design Competition.
On Saturday, the task was to design a space settlement where 12,000 people could live in orbit in the Earth-Lunar L4 libration point from 2038 onwards. Five teams of 50 pupils worked on a design that satisfied a complex brief, and then they prepared a 35 minute presentation which was delivered, and judged on the Sunday morning. The expectation was that the team would be able to justify facility sizes and locations, explain how the structure would be built and populated, estimate the cost and schedule for the construction, and show systems that would enable the residents to live and work in their new community.
The Kingham Hill contingent worked hard and contributed ideas, research, costings and drawings to the Rockdonnell Company within the four departments (Structural, Operations, Human Engineering and Automation), with pupil Ana (Y12) taking on a Vice President role and being part of the presentation team, along with Frank (Y12) and Christian (Y11).
It was an intense and challenging competition which everyone said that they would like to experience again, and we are looking forward to participating again next year.
Well done to Niki (Y10), Toby (Y10), Christian (Y11), Felix (Y11), Daniel (Y11), Frank (Y12), Ana (Y12), Alice (Y13), Leo (Y13), and Ben (Y13) for working hard to get us to the National finals.