A group of Wellington College students recently travelled to Imperial College London to take part in the national final of the UK Space Design Competition. The residential competition brings together students from across the UK for an intensive weekend of collaboration, engineering design and presentation, all centred around a fictional space industry challenge.
This year’s Request for Proposal, titled Apollo’s Brace, challenged students to design a next generation lunar project combining a luxury resort with a lunar ice harvesting facility. Working in mixed teams with students from other schools, participants formed fictional aerospace companies and spent the weekend developing and pitching their proposal.
Four Wellington students presented in the final company pitch: Nina F, Leo, Charlie S and Millie M. Charlie S was also recognised individually, winning the Presenter Prize for his outstanding performance.
Below is a summary of the weekend written by Chung H K, who was the key organiser of the trip.
After a bright and early departure from the college on Saturday morning, we arrived at Imperial college’s finest lecture halls to get split into our fictional companies, ours being the Australian TNC ‘Condor’, comprising of 7 other groups from various schools. From there, we were given the weekends task – the RFP, or Request for Proposal, by the fictional ‘Consortium’ of the UKSDC universe.
The request?
To propose a design for Apollo’s Brace, a next generation luxury resort and lunar ice harvesting facility.
We were then put into our company HQs, where we received the full request in detail. From there, we started our work, sorting into different departments, and nominating a President, Vice President Engineering, and Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
It was then a non-stop loop of discussions, meetings, and designing, up until dinner, where we got pizza ordered by the SSEF.
After dinner, we then trekked our way to our accommodation for the night, a particular challenge having to lug Rohan’s PC and monitor halfway across Kensington.
Settling in for the evening, we set up a zoom meeting for the whole company to work across. Working from our rooms, we continued going through the design process – designing, refining, and optimising our solutions. With those speaking the next day getting sleep, the rest of us worked through the night to finalise everything.
At 7, we took a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant, packing up soon after to make the trek back to Imperial.
Arriving back, we were ushered into the lecture hall once again, this time to hear the other company’s pitches. As we were third in the order, this was key time to catch some sleep!
After a quick comfort break, it was time for our company to present. With 4/8 of our company’s presenters being from Wellington (while making up a 5th of the overall company), Wellingtonian presenters worked exceptionally hard to ensure every point of the RFP was represented.
Following this, we watched the last company present. Then, it was time for the judges to deliberate, where we got some much needed lunch outside.
Coming back after our break, we then gathered back into the hall, to be met with some shilling of Imperial’s space society, but more importantly, the results of the competition.
Unfortunately, this ended up with the news that we had not in fact won. Nevertheless, Wellington and our compatriots tried our best, and more importantly, enjoyed the competition thoroughly.
Although the team did not take the overall title, the weekend was an outstanding experience in collaboration, leadership and technical problem solving. Competing alongside students from across the country, Wellingtonians demonstrated creativity, resilience and excellent presentation skills throughout an intense and rewarding national final.
