A team of British schoolchildren reached for the stars and returned home triumphant from an international space competition the US
One of Outreach's Postgraduate Ambassadors (and also a Rector's Ambassador), Daniel Went, has just returned from the USA, where he helped coach a UK team towards winning the grand finals of the International Space Settlement Design Competition, held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas (home of the NASA space programme).
Daniel was invited to attend both as a personal advisor to the UK team and as a general scientific advisor for the event, but his visit was only made possible with financial support provided by Imperial's International Office. He had been involved in the earlier stages of the competition, as the UK finals (sponsored by the UK Space Agency) are organised by Dr Randall Perry in Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial.
The winning UK team comprised 13 students from three different schools and, in Houston, they met up with three other teams, two from America and one from Pakistan. The challenge facing the teams at the finals was to design a proposal for a human settlement on Mars which would provide habitation and life-support for 24,000 colonists, complete with settlement plans and cost estimates; each team then had to present their bid as a commercial contract to the panel of judges.
The picture of the winning team, Vulture Aviation, is above, with Daniel in the centre. Daniel comments "Both competitions serve as an amazing opportunity for students to learn not only about science and engineering, but also about time management, social skills and communication." In his Rector's Ambassador role, Daniel also spent some time talking to the participants about studying at Imperial: "Many of the students later revealed that they were either currently considering applying to Imperial College London or, in the case of some of the older competitors, had already gone ahead and done so. I was left with the distinct impression that, in serving as an ambassador for Imperial College London at this event, I had helped many of these students gain a better understanding as to what life is like here at Imperial and perhaps encouraged some of them to look at the college in a different light."
Daniel is resuming his Outreach activities visiting London schools in the autumn, while undertaking research for a PhD in the Astrophysics Section of the Physics Department.
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