ROSDC landed in Cluj for the first time and students had a blast!

This October saw the first Cluj regional of the Romanian Space Design Competition take place at “Avram Iancu” Theoretical High School. The day saw over 80 students create designs for a lunar based settlement and present their designs to a panel of judges including: SSEF Junior Programmes Director Corinne Barker, Salad Box CEO Alina Covșă, software engineer Alexandru-Mihail Crăciun, and UBB lecturer Ioan-Gabriel Mircea.

After a welcome briefing from the organisation team in Cluj, Iona and Danielle, SSEF representative Corinne, and ROSDC organiser Adrian, students received technical training from ISSDC alumni Anastasia and Alex. The 3 companies, Kepler Automation, Earhart Advanced Industries and Olympus Mons Trading Company then headed off to their company headquarters to elect their presidents and vice presidents. Companies were all assigned company mentors who spent their day working alongside the company’s leadership to help guide the company through the competition.

It was finally time for students to get working on their designs. Companies brainstormed their initial ideas through the morning and were able to make key design decisions to be able to meet later requirements in the RFP. Fuelled up on pizzas for lunch the companies spent their afternoon workshopping their ideas and creating engaging and creative presentations ready for the judges to review. It was great to see the teams working so well together and collaborating on their ideas to fulfil the requirements of the RFP.

After a productive day working hard to get their designs finalised, it was time for the companies to present their ideas to the judges. All 3 presentations did an excellent job of clearly communicating the company’s vision for the settlement and showcased their original, innovative ideas in a professional manner. All 3 teams did a fantastic job, but as always there can only be one winner. After much deliberation the judges announced the winning company as Kepler Automation, a massive well done to all the company members.

The work produced by all participants throughout the day was of an extremely high standard and left both the judges and volunteers impressed by the quality of their ideas and the level of detail in their presentations. 12 students have been selected to join 12 students from the Bucharest regional at the EUSDC finals, which will take place online in March. We can’t wait to see what ideas and designs students create on the day.

ROSDC is powered by SSEF and ROSPIN. The ROSDC thrives thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers who work incredibly hard to help make the events happen. The Cluj regional was also generously supported by Atelierul de Pizza, who kindly donated 40 pizzas for the students lunch, and Fabrit global. ROSDC would not be possible without the support of our sponsors and we are immensely grateful for their continued donations.

Corinne Barker
30/10/23