A few weeks ago, the head of my school's science club reached out to all the members, inviting us to join the PTSDC. Although it isn't closely related to my interests, I decided to join in. Now, after-the-fact, I'm glad I chose to participate, because it was at the same time one of the most fun and most stressing days I ever had.

Introduction

I assume most of you don't know what SDC is. SDC stands for Space Design Competition. This quotation is taken from the EUSDC official site.

The European Space Design Competitions are a multinational framework of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics (STEAM) space-a-thon challenges designed as simulations of life in industry. Traditional of the SDC events, teams are given a list of design requirements for a space settlement from a fictional client, and have a day to come up with a detailed proposal which they present to an expert panel of judges. The SDCs are open to any participant based in a European country (excluding UK) who is aged between 15 to 18 years old. The aim of the competition is to provide students the chance to experience what to expect within the space sector through conceptually design a detailed and fully costed proposal, take full responsibility of their design progress, and empower them with the skills necessary to overcome the challenges of working in large teams.

So, basically, SDC is a competition aimed at high school students which attempts to simulate work in the space industry. Each year, the competitions present teams with a challenge related to designing some form of settlement somewhere in space, which they must complete in a short amount of time. Then, the teams present their project to a board of judges which chose a winning team. The competition is also structured in three phases:

1. The National Phase: some European countries hold a national competition (this is where PTSDC stands). The winning team of each country passes on to the next phase. Students from countries without a national competition can apply directly to the second phase.
2. The European Competition (EUSDC): in this phase, the participants are faced with a harder problem, which allows them to qualify to the next phase, if they manage to win.
3. The International Competition (SDC): this is the final phase. The winners of EUSDC, as well as other teams from outside Europe compete for a place in an inside trip to NASA's facilities.

The PTSDC is the national competition in Portugal (as evidenced by the name), which happens to be where I'm from.

The story

Before the competition

Before the big day, many things happened. Firstly, teams were made. My team, made up of 29 people in total, was composed of some people from my school's science club (because we all signed up together), some more people from other schools and a few people from the wining team on the Spanish competition (this was because it was the first Spanish competition, and it didn't go very well, so the winners joined the Portuguese competition to get some more experience). On the competition's eve, we all got two documents: the schedule and the press release. The latter gave us some information about what we'd be doing. It told us our goal was to design a mining settlement to be built inside lava tubes in mercury, called Bosloh (bozz-low).

During the competition

The members of our team from the science club had arranged to meet at school for the competition. So, at 7:30, I arrived and went to the agreed meeting place. After some initial talk with the judges, technical assistants (TAs) and CEOs, we all chose our department. Available choices were Humans Dept., Structures Dept., Automation Dept. and Operations Dept., of which I chose the last. We then voted on the heads of department, the head of business and marketing and the president for our team. After all the preparations, we finally got the Request for Proposal (RFP). This document explained thoroughly what we had to do, so we read it very carefully. My department was tasked with conceiving and explaining systems for extraction and processing of minerals, water distribution and renovation, energy distribution and production and people and goods transportation. We worked hard all morning, trying to come up with ideas. Around one o'clock, we had our Red Team Review, were we presented our work to the board of judges and received some advice from them, which we could use in the afternoon to improve our ideas. In the afternoon, we started developing our ideas and putting them on the final presentation. As the hours went by, it seemed our to-do list just grew bigger and bigger, but somehow we managed to finish everything in time. Then we had some time to rest before the presentation.

Presenting to the judges

With all teams presentations finished and submitted, it was time to present our design to the judges, and my team happened to be first. Despite not being the head of department, it was I who presented Operations Dept.'s part. Modesty aside, I think I did a pretty decent job, as everyone did. Before we were worry free, we still had to answer some questions, but then our work was done and we the most we could do was bad-mouth the other teams while we watched them presenting (don't judge us just yet - after working practically non-stop for almost nine hours you'd do the same, and of course our microphones were muted, it was just between us).

The results

After waiting for the results for way too long, the grand moment came. At least I imagine so. By that time, I had already gone home half-asleep. I did find out what the results were though. Unfortunately, we didn't win. However, I'd do it again without giving it a second thought. It is way too much fun to miss.

Reflections

Now, writing about it almost two weeks after, there are some mistakes I can easily point out. Since I'm young enough to participate again next year, unlike most of my teammates, I'll try to look out for those and avoid making them again. But all things considered, it was totally worth it to lose a Saturday participating in PTSDC. They say to shoot for the stars, so next year I'm aiming for EUSDC! And on that note, I'll see you next time with a more ordinary post.