Australian Space Design Competition
Australian Space Design Competition
The Australian Space Design Competition (ASDC) is designed for secondary school students with a passion for space, or are considering a future in STEM fields.
Teams of up to 12 students respond to an engineering Request For Tender (RFT) and design a futuristic space settlement, planning structural engineering, operations and infrastructure, personnel factors, automation, and business development.
The Team
Magdalene Catholic College has entered a team under the moniker of ‘Starr-Rice Exploration’ in the 2021 competition. Kathleen Creighton Starr Rice was born in Ontario in 1882. She rose to fame for her vast exploration projects, covering 800km on foot, dog sled and canoe to find zinc, vanadium, gold and nickel deposits throughout Canada.
The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame describes her as an “innovative dog trainer”, and an explorer with a strong respect for First Nations groups, who often worked with her on her journeys.
Rice made considerable contributions to mining projects once she had found deposits; she staked 16 nickel and copper claims on Rice Island in Weskusko Lake in central Manitoba between 1920 and 1922, which were valued at $5m in 1925. She then formed the Rice Island Nickel Company in 1928, in which she held a stake for the next 30 years.
In honour of Rice, the Exploration company bears her name. Her tenacity, creativity and resourcefulness live on in Starr Rice Exploration.
The Scenario
The competition involves creating a technical tender for a theoretical space station. The year is 2087 and The Foundation Society has offered to provide funding to develop and operate a settlement in Venus orbit, from which they can send vehicles and drones to probe for business opportunities in the Venusian atmosphere and on the planet’s surface. Analyses show that vehicles can be built to survive on Venus by using alloys for high-temperature jet turbine blades in structural designs similar to research submarines that study Earth’s ocean depths.
The Progress
The team at Magdalene Catholic College have been working in earnest through Term 2 and Term 3. Whilst remote learning has been a challenge this has been just another problem to overcome for this impressive bunch of students.
They recently completed their preliminary design review with an industry expert and experienced ASDC officials via Zoom. Some examples of the positive feedback are below:
‘Impressive CAD work and thorough design this far. Thanks for having me at the PDR’
‘Impressive presentation and your designs look really interesting’
The team will continue to work to prepare their tender due on August 27th. The finalists will compete in a national competition, with international (albeit online) competitions held over 3 days to complete similar tender projects.
We wish them all the best as they navigate through the hurdles to come.
Mr Chris Ferry and Mr Alan Norris
Starr-Rice Board Members
