The Discovery Space – the Airbus Foundation’s initiative in partnership with Autodesk to inspire youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), joined forces with the European Space Agency (ESA) Education programme to put a new perspective on human exploration of the cosmos with an international competition involving more than 850 students from 22 countries.

Initiated last October, the Moon Camp Challenge tasked participating teams with designing a base camp for life on the Moon – while accounting for such difficulties as extreme temperatures, lack of oxygen, radiation and falling meteorites.

The students benefited from access to Airbus Foundation animations, ESA educational resources and Autodesk 3D design tools as they tried to create the most creative, innovative and suited-to-purpose base camp concepts.  

A panel of experts in space and lunar exploration selected the three best entries in both age categories (12 years-and-under and 13-18 years old). All entries were judged based on their creativity, feasibility, quality of the 3D model and the adaptability of the design to the lunar environment. In addition to naming the winners, the panel highly commended certain teams for the quality of their design.  

The Moon Camp Challenge built on the success of Discovery Space’s first international competition and on the extensive experience of ESA in using space as a context for the teaching and learning of STEM in a school setting.  The first Discovery Space competition provided comprehensive details about how to live on the Moon, then tasked students with designing a rocket to travel there using Tinkercad and Fusion 360 software developed by Airbus Foundation partner Autodesk Inc. The winners were announced in 2018.

Lean more about Discovery Space’s Moon Camp Challenge 2018-2019. 

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