On Saturday 28 January, Bede’s had the privilege to host the unveiling of Artemis VII… ‘The holiday of a lifetime Lunar resort’. Once again we witnessed the return of the beloved Galactic challenge, a space design competition for Year groups 5-8 which simulates an engineering industry style environment. The competition is designed to give the pupils the chance to experience what it would be like to work in big organisations such as NASA.
This year we hosted 120 children from 12 schools who were divided into 5 mixed companies. They started off the day with a short briefing and introduction before splitting into their individual companies and departments. The students faced their first challenge of the day by electing a company president, vice president of engineering, vice president of marketing as well as a head of structural, operational, human, automation and business department. Throughout the day the children were tasked with answering a detailed RFP (request for proposal) detailing what the judges were looking for in terms of their luxury space holiday resort. Whilst doing so, they were given guidance by budding Bede’s Senior school pupils, posing as technical advisors and CEOs, on how to go about creating a ‘winning’ presentation.
During the competition, the students faced challenges such as protecting their space settlement from harsh space environments, incorporating mechanisms to counteract low moon gravity, ways to effectively pitch their ideas and developing methods to generate profit, despite an inevitably expensive cost of building. The young students gained a valuable insight into how demanding and exciting the engineering business/industry can be.
Over the course of the day we saw many incredible ideas pitched which truly wowed the judges and were testament to the hardwork and talent of the young engineers. It was amazing to see their skills advance as they developed imaginative concepts whilst ensuring they were (at least mostly!) scientifically viable. These included solutions for renewable energy, recycling, cleverly repurposing materials whilst ensuring their structures could be protected from outer space. With some of my favourites being alcohol dispensing robots, reusable transportation robots, sustainable food and power supplies that incorporated aquaponics and fish breeding, luxury holiday packages, space golf and robo spiders.
Whilst the children themselves learnt plenty, many of the volunteers also gained a great deal from the experience themselves when learning how to encourage and give guidance to the pupils. One of my personal highlights was when I and another volunteer were explaining the concepts of biofuels to a young boy and seeing how innovative thoughts and curiosity drove him to a renewable solution. All of which brought a smile to my face.
Finally, the day culminated with the children battling it out to present their space settlement design proposals to the ‘Foundation Society’, a fierce panel of judges. Whilst the plethora of innovative, creative and truly talented ideas astounded the judges, unfortunately only one proposal could come out victorious. And after a tough few rounds of witty, humorous and eloquently pitched presentations, Astrodyne Delta (comprised of students from Bede’s Prep, Cardinal Newman, Rose Hill and Skippers Hill) came out victorious with their design. What particularly captivated the judges was their use of advanced and creative ideas when maximising revenue through luxury holiday packages.
All in all the day was incredibly successful and clearly sparked a burning desire to collaboratively innovate and create large scale projects.
