Students shine in national space design competition

A team of Queensland school students will showcase their talents at an international space design competition in Houston after winning the Australian finals of the Australian Space Design Competition.

Four school teams competed at the University of Queensland last night (19 January) with the challenge to design, develop, construct and operate a dedicated asteroid mining settlement in 2049.

Minister for Science and Innovation Ian Walker congratulated the winning team of ‘Magellan’ for showing impressive creativity, innovation and technical knowledge.

The team was made up of students from Sheldon College, Redlands, Cannon Hill Anglican College, Bundaberg State High School and the Australian Science and Mathematics School, Adelaide.

“Over the weekend more than one hundred students worked very hard to analyse the challenge, develop a proposed solution, and work together to prepare a compelling presentation – often with other students they had only just met,” Mr Walker said.

“The abilities demonstrated by these students instil a lot of confidence in the future of innovation and science in Queensland.

“The Newman Government recognises how important the ongoing development of talent in the science sector is, which we’ve demonstrated with the injection of $8.75million in the Accelerate program through the Science and Innovation Action Plan and our $42 million commitment to the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine in North Queensland.

“It’s these students we want to cultivate and see working in here in Queensland’s world class facilities in various science and innovation roles in the future,” said Mr Walker.

Twelve schools attended the Brisbane finals, where they were combined into mixed teams and had just 26 hours to develop a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation responding to an entirely new outer space challenge.

The Australian Space Design draws on students’ knowledge of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), as well as their skills in teamwork, marketing and human relations.

Schools from Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales competed in the competition’s first round, each submitting a 40-page proposal to design, develop, construct and operate a large space settlement.

All entries were assessed by a panel of judges provided by Engineers Australia, who applied similar criteria to those used in assessing tenders submitted for major engineering projects.

Competition organiser Mr Mark Shaw said 16 students would now travel to Houston, USA, in July, where they would work with students from other countries in a team to compete in the international competition.

“We’ve seen Australian entrants do very well in Houston, including a win and a number of second placings in past international competitions,” he said.

“Finalists have also gone on to successful careers in STEM, as have many of the other entrants.”

[ENDS] 20 January 2014

Media Contact: Alexandria Bernard   0417 252 563