On Saturday, 5 members travelled to Cardiff University to help volunteer as judges and mentors at the regional UK Space Design Competition for Years 10-13. 4 local schools attended Stanwell School, Kings Monkton School, Cardiff Sixth Form College and Cardiff and Vale College and they were paired together to form design teams at two prime contractors, Kepler Automation and Olympus Mons Tading Company. They were tasked with designing the first human settlement around Mercury called Anaximandah. The Hermanin system has been identified as the next step after a Lunar Gateway and the brief starts the teams in the year 2058, 30 years after the Artemis programme. Over 7 hours of hard work, the teams prepared a presentation covering detailed technical aspects including engineering, environmental and human factors, business and project management. This was then presented to a judging panel made up of BristolSEDS resentatives, Cardiff University students and UKSDC alumni. As cliché as it sounds, it was a complete coin toss between Kepler Automation and Olympus Mons Trading Company with the judges debating the winner for half an hour resulting in a 3-2 vote! After a wonderful closing speech by Shayne Beegadhur, Olympus Mons Trading Company were crowned regional champions and they will progress to the national finals in March. It was a fantastic day with lots of brilliant ideas and collaboration. We would like to congratulate all of the participants for some excellent designs and an astonishing amount of detail in such a short period of time. Very best of luck to Kings Monkton School and Stanwell School in the next stage of the competition! We hope to be back inspiring the next batch of space enthusiasts next year!
