Congratulations to two Cannons pupils – Qaylah Omar (Grade 10) and Alaya Kaplen (Grade 11) – who have been selected out of more than 100 pupils to represent South Africa at the International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida from 29 July – 3 August.
This follows on their exemplary performance at South Africa’s first national space settlement design competition for High School pupils – the South African Space Design Competition (ZASDC) which aims to connect students to NASA-level engineering education. The national finals took place on 30-31 March, where Cannons Creek was fortunate enough to send a large group of pupils where they learnt about space travel, and collaborated with others regarding the future of space exploration via real life scenarios.
Cannons Creek entered two teams, where they formed two out of the three companies (each made up of three teams), joining pupils from schools such as Parklands College, Bishops Diocesan College, and Generation Schools Hermanus. The main goal of the project was that they had to imagine they were in the year 2046; i.e. performing a simulation of life on the moon in 2046. They needed to factor in aspects such as transport systems and urban living.
The groups were judged on their ability to achieve the set objectives, culminating in a presentation. The criteria were set as follows – cohesion, realistic feasibility, and financial feasibility. They were also judged on aspects such as the marketability of their project.
We are so proud of all our pupils, but especially of Qaylah and Alaya who will represent South Africa, but also answered some tough questions and represented their companies (and school) well. Thank you to Mrs Oliphant for entering our pupils, and thank you to Mr Nuves for accompanying them.