University of Glasgow hosts the UK Space Design Competition

On the first Saturday of November, seventy four eager and excited secondary students from across Scotland descended on the University of Glasgow for the most northerly round of the UK Space Design Competition (UKSDC). Some teams had to travel to Glasgow the night before, others were more local. 

The competition is set as an engineering industry simulation, with the students assigned to fictitious companies. After an introduction to the task ahead, the students made their way to their workrooms and started to tackle their industry style Request for Proposal. Working in their three companies, they had only seven hours to produce their presentation to the competition judges. 

Guidance was given to each company by competition alumni, (Keisha, University of Glasgow: Poppy, University of Strathclyde: Xavier, University of Edinburgh), with additional technical advice coming from Dr Matteo Ceriotti, Mikey, (UoG), Eilidh, (UoG), and Niamh (Spire).

After a day’s hard work, three excellent student presentations were made to the judging panel: Dr Ceriotti, Niamh and Mikey. 

Before rushing off to join her fellow judges in deciding on the winning company, Niamh demonstrated a life size model of a Spire satellite, and then gave away four coveted Lego sets of Spire satellites to selected students. 

Earhart Advanced Industries were chosen as the winners, and students from St George’s in Edinburgh and St Leonard School in St Andrews will be taking part in the UKSDC Finals in March.

Thank you to the teachers and volunteers who made this event possible, and a huge thank you to the University of Glasgow for hosting the event.

By Jenny Lyons, CEO SSEF