Being able to successfully visit – and live on – the Moon is pretty high on humanity’s priority list. To do that, though, would require a lot of advanced technology, including (1) a spaceship that could transfer all of the necessary cargo for us to establish a base on the Moon and (2) a spaceship that could take us to the Moon. The bad news is that we may still be a long way from making that a reality.
The good news? If you’ve got a design idea for either of those spaceships flying around inside your head, you might have the chance to win $1,000 (around Php 50,000)!
Check out this cool spaceship design competition sponsored by Autodesk and the Airbus Foundation. Autodesk offers free educational resources and software to students, teachers, and schools geared towards 3D design and engineering. The Airbus Foundation, on the other hand, seeks to inspire young minds to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by shining the spotlight on space exploration.
Launched last May 2, the competition has two categories (or “Challenges”). The first is for participants under 13 years of age, while the second is for (a) 13- to 17-year-olds and (b) 18- to 25-year-olds.
Challenge 1: Design a Cargo Spaceship
For the first challenge (13 years old and below), participants are to design a rocket that can bring cargo to the Moon. The design must be created using the Autodesk Tinkercad platform. A parent or legal guardian must submit the entry on the student’s behalf.
The entry must include the following:
* A screen capture of the design, saved as a .JPG or .PNG file.
* The link (URL) to the Tinkercad design.
* (Optional) A 60-second video that highlights the design’s unique features (uploaded on YouTube).
* (Optional) A written description of the design (maximum length of 1,000 words).
Challenge 2: Design a Transport Spaceship
For the second challenge (divided into the 13-17 and 18-25 categories), participants must use the free downloadable Autodesk Fusion 360 software to design a spaceship that can ferry human passengers from Earth to the Moon.
Your entry must contain the following:
* A render of your design as a .JPG or .PNG file (maximum file size of 10MB).
* A Fusion 360 3D file in .f3d format. The .f3z format will not be accepted (maximum file size of 110MB).
* (Optional) A 60-second video that highlights the design’s unique features (uploaded on YouTube).
* (Optional) A written description of the design (maximum length of 1,000 words).
As only one image file can be uploaded you may want to combine multiple views into one image (maximum width of 1000 px).
Based on the challenge you’ll be joining, various prizes are at stake. There’s the aforementioned cash prize (for participants in the 18-25 category). You can also win other awesome stuff, such as 3D printers, Airbus scale models, and free Airbus Foundation mentoring sessions.
The competition closes on July 26th, 2018. Expect winners to be announded on or around August 26th, 2018.
So, what are you waiting for? If you think that your design concept is good enough to go toe-to-toe against those from students across the world, now’s a good time to start working on it! You can view the full list of prizes and requirements for each challenge by clicking on this link.
Author: Mikael Angelo Francisco
Bitten by the science writing bug, Mikael has years of writing and editorial experience under his belt. As the editor-in-chief of FlipScience, Mikael has sworn to help make science more fun and interesting for geeky readers and casual audiences alike.
