22 April 2020
Four teams of lower sixth boys signed up for the Blott Matthews Engineering challenge last September. The challenge was designed to celebrate the ten Apollo lunar missions and the 50th anniversary of the first of the six Apollo Moon landings.
Submissions needed to:
- propose a commercial activity to be undertaken on the Moon
- design a permanent Moon base capable of sustaining at least 20 persons and maximizing self sustainment
- design a transportation system for carriage of people and materials to / from the Moon on a regular basis
- be based on solutions that have a regard to engineering elegance, efficiency and affordability.
The teams worked extremely hard producing exceptional reports. Unfortunately the presentation day was cancelled so the boys did not get to discuss their work with the judges but their outstanding work was recognised with a first, third and two merit awards and a prize for best poster.
The judges summed up the winning entry from Space Factory as:
“An excellent submission with a bold, innovative commercial strategy thoroughly researched and clearly presented. Attention to detail in proposing engineering solutions was exemplary.”
Their certificate is pictured and the winning team members are: James Gibson, Freddie Nicholson, Charlie Franklin, Ben Reed, Tristan Mann Powter, Alfie Marshall, Shi Hong Kuang, Francesco Bartolini and Rohan Gathani.
