Written by Katrina, Tilly and Alice, Year 12
On 12th April 2023, the International Day of Human Space Flight, the innovation summit commenced. After the adrenaline fuelled 10 hour flight from Heathrow to Houston, we powered through the rest of the evening which consisted of: collecting our Conrad Challenge freebies, an opening dinner, a speech and icebreaker activities with the other finalists. We started to make friends very quickly as everyone was excited to finally meet people we had previously only seen on Zoom.
Despite the jet lag, we awoke at the crack of dawn for the day we’d spent the last eight months preparing for: our power pitch. Terrified, but eager we put on our suits. We had 8 minutes to explain and sell our idea to six industry experts. We felt the pressure, but as soon as we started speaking we sailed through the pitch – we’d not spent hours practising on the plane for nothing. By the time we got to the 20-minute Q&A with the judges our adrenaline had subsided, and we were able to answer the questions calmly directly.
With the pitch over we could turn our mind to the fun stuff! We started off our next day with a shuttle bus tour of Space Centre Houston (a nature reserve and swamp, as we soon discovered). In addition, looking for ‘goosechase’ locations around the space centre set up by the fantastic Alumni, taking pictures to submit when we found them.
After lunch, we set up our EXPO stall below the Apollo Lunar Landing Module in the lobby of the space centre. We discussed and explained our idea with members of the public, answered specific questions from judges and thrust our leaflets on anyone and everyone in eyesight. This was absolutely incredible and one of the highlights of the trip. The judges were able to give us their feedback, and to be validated by experts in the field was a tremendous feeling.
The only thing that remained now was the awards ceremony. In the meantime, we went exploring. First we took a trip to Kemah Boardwalk, a waterside fairground. We took in the sights with some of our new friends. After lunch, we had to experience the quintessential American shopping experience: going to the mall. In the evening we headed back to the centre to hear the final results.
We are delighted to announce that we won two awards! One for the best overall marketing and digital communications and the other for best active engagement and enthusiasm. We were over the moon!
Overall going to the Conrad Summit was a fantastic and incredible experience in so many ways. We met so many other wonderful people who we are still in contact with, and we were able to talk to and connect with various leading experts in the aerospace and aviation industry. But most importantly it has inspired us, and boosted our confidence in our scientific ability. While we were there, we heard first-hand accounts of people like us who used the Conrad Challenge as their launchpad to go on to have careers creating startups and in business. Hence, we are currently thinking of ways we can carry our project into the future.
