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Scottish Space School

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University of Strathclyde 
 
Thursday
Up at the normal time for breakfast and on to our daily briefing which finished at nine. Then our team split into two with 5 people in each. One of the two Delta groups worked on the Mars Lander Challenge, Corrin, Beth, Tammy, Callan and James, while the other group gave helpful advice then headed off to the Careers Fair. Our Lander had to hold a raw egg and be dropped from 6 meters without breaking. The egg also had to be retrieved within 15 seconds of landing and all this had to be done with limited materials. Our Lander was pretty impressive, according to the team anyway, with a great big paper parachute and a paper plate suspension base. Next we had our lunch and then got a talk from guest speaker Elizabeth Donnelly which everyone listened to and enjoyed. The half of the team that did the Mars Lander Challenge now went to the Careers Fair while the other half of our awesome team did the Mars Rover Challenge. This included getting certain positions. Mark was the navigator which included doing a lot of tricky maths to show the group where the minerals we were trying to collect were. Holly was the rover driver who had to search the planets surface for the minerals in the correct places, and managed to get 20! Aaron was the commander who had to steer a truck up a ramp to where the arm was waiting while Daniel was the blimp driver who, at the same time, had to fly the blimp into a silver ring above the arm. Keira was the arm operator and had to take two small yellow things off a string attached to the blimp and place them in the truck. The truck then had to race back to its starting position, and all this time we had a time limit but managed to complete this mission with time to spare. Everyone then headed back to the lecture room where Heather Paul gave us a talk following on from An Evening With NASA from Wednesday night. She gave another outstanding speech and left everyone feeling inspired. Next up was our Big Project Presentations which all went very well. Unfortunately Delta did not win but to us, our poster was by far the best, but well done to the other teams who also gave great presentations (however inferior to Delta’s). The Gala Dinner and Ceilidh in the Students Union went very well. The majority of people enjoyed the dinner and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the dancing. It became very warm in the room but was all part of the experience and the band was superb.
Friday
Today was our last day… We all had breakfast, as per usual, and then instead of our daily briefing we had to go to the village office to check out and return our keys. Next up on the list was Robolympics which sounded amazing but unfortunately due to a burst water main we weren’t allowed to use the hall so never got to take part in this event. Instead we all got the chance to talk to our NASA guests and they were happy to sign some autographs and take some pictures which was great. The teams all gathered for our Debriefing and prize-giving. Delta came an overall 4th out of the 12 groups which we were all very pleased about. We said a special thank you to everyone who made Scottish Space School 2010 possible and for those who participated as speakers and mentors. So here’s a mega thank you to Gordon, Marianne, the NASA guests and all the other important people who helped put Scottish Space School together this year and kept everything running smoothly. Thank you also to Matthew our mentor (who is obviously the best mentor) who finished the week by saying “Delta Disband!”
Wednesday

To start off the morning lectures instead of a daily briefing, Professor Graham Ault gave a presentation about a project, run and staffed by Strathclyde University and its students, in Gambia and Malawi to provide solar power to energy deprived locations. Everyone listened intently: even with the exceptionally hot weather, a constant factor apparently.

We then headed to our secret Delta base, where we carried out our plans for the Big Project, (which, by the way, we have nearly finished) for 3 hours….

Lunch followed with much relaxing in the sun.

Next up was our daily briefing, in which we were all informed about the remainder of the week, including the ceilidh which everyone is looking forward to.

After we went back to the microbiology lab and continued our experiment and investigation into the organisms living on our bodies, with worryingly creepy results in some cases (from people other than Delta of course). Most of the results were very clear and it was pretty amazing to see what really was living on our bodies no matter how much we wash.

Then we had a extra half an hour for our Big Project and ended up not doing all that much. We just have to come up with the 3 minute talk for our presentation tomorrow.

After we had some lovely dinner Team Delta assembled to move off to the lecture room where we had an evening with NASA. Spacesuit designer Heather Paul gave a very interesting presentation about different designs of spacesuits and how important each different part is. Next up was astronaut Nicholas Patrick who got everyone, young to old, inspired about going into space. He also did an amazing presentation and showed a video of the crew playing games, eating food and all sorts whilst being weightless.

We then had an open mic night which was very entertaining.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Tuesday

Another early start for us today, up and ready at half 6 sharp, breakfast and daily briefing at the usual time, than we tried to build a heart monitor, with varies degrees of success.  We detected our pulse by the changing pressure of compressed air, which was easier said than done; many of us appeared dead on the machine.  However, once we amplified the signal and ran it through the comparator, little square boxes appeared on the monitor: success!! The process was most rewarding as we physically achieved in building a working, if a little more basic heart monitor.  Holly and Beth’s neighbor’s electric skills proved immensely helpful, Tammy and Keira had the instructor’s help, and the boys gave up due to “faulty equipment”.  

After a nice warm lunch, accompanied by some not so lovely extremely warm weather, we all settled in for the two lectures on microbes in space and planning a NASA mission.  The information was naturally fascinating, though the lecture theatre was too much like a sauna for us to really concentrate properly. The mission included planning a journey for a robot on a distant planet and we had to plan the robots actions before it executed them. It was a lot of fun and gave us a chance to experience what some of the team at NASA do for a living.

Once we had to leave our robot missions we had half an hour of Big Project time which we actually managed quite well. The team sorted out the template and split into smaller groups where we decided what we were going to write on the poster. Can’t say too much about the poster just in case the team we’re up against reads this post but we can say that it will be awesome!

We were all bundled over to Lord Todd for dinner which was again very good and then onto some free time. After the free time the team came together and walked round to the students union where we had a talk from Professor Kevin Warwick about cyborgs, which everyone found entertaining and very interesting. Then we were all put into pairs with the enemy teams and got to play three games of pool. Although none of our group got into the finals it was a very fun night...

Monday

We’re off to a nice and early start this morning, up at 6.30 and off to breakfast at 7.15. The food in Lord Todd is actually pretty good and the breakfast kept us going until lunch…just.
Daily briefing at 8.30 and a lecture on rocket propulsion from 9 – 12. The lecture was very interesting and set us up for the rocket launch later on.  Rocket construction  started after the lecture finished at about 10. Our team split into groups, Tammy and Holly drew flames on the rocket while everyone else messed around with the super glue. And somehow we built a rocket.
After lunch we did the multi-cultured swab shop which we will finish on Wednesday, to see what germs we’re all carrying.
After some more rocket construction we headed off to Loch Lomond to launch the rockets. The weather was lovely but we were deprived of swimming possibilities in the loch. As we arrived the mentors went straight for the swings and dragged some of the students with them.  Keira loved the swings!
Amidst Frisbee , chatting and Corrin’s rabbits in purple cardigans, all the rockets successfully launched.
After a long wait we eventually got into Ross Priory for a lovely indoors “BBQ”.
We were all very tired and wanting showers by the time we got back and couldn’t wait to get to bed for an early start the next day…


Sunday

Everyone arrived between two and four in the afternoon to get checked in and find out which apartment they were going to stay in. We all met the people we were sharing our flats with and quickly got to know each other a little.

Then it was time for the welcome meeting which was basically just to welcome us and find out our groups (Delta obviously being the best) and met our mentors. On the way out we each received a folder which included our timetable and notes on activities for the rest of the week and a Space School water bottle. Which was very exciting!

We were then shown by our mentors where Lord Todd was and told that this was where we would be having dinner. Dinner was pretty good and we all started looking forward to the rest of the week’s food which is still to come.

We had some free time after dinner to get settled into our flats and get to know the campus before we all gathered in the assembly hall for the Quiz Night. There were six rounds each with ten questions. Some topics everyone was ready for but others were a surprise that were not expected.

After this we were told that we would have to be up early the next day and so we went off to our flats to relax and read the notes for the following day…

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