Twitter
Advertisement

Talented 12 take a giant leap at Nasa

Students from Bishop Cotton finish second in a design contest organised by nasa

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

For 17-year-old Arihant Praveen Kochar, a class 12 student at Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, it was a ‘childhood dream coming true’ when he left, along with 11 other schoolmates, for Nasa to participate in the Space Settlement Design Competition 2012 organised by the US space agency. Now, not only has his dream come true, he, along with his friends, have brought laurels to the school and the city by securing second place in the design competition.

The 12—Akhil Relekar, Akshay Bangalore Nagabhushana, Ankur Biswas, Arihant Praveen Kochar, Felix Samuel Ebenezer Daniel, Kartik Venkatraman, Kunal Vasudeva, Mohamed Amran Ameen, Nikhil Balraj Asrani, Nitish Mohan Mankani, Shiva Karnad Devaiah and Yusuf Rafique—competed in the event held in Houston, USA, from July 28-30 after participating in the Asian semi-finals held in Gurgaon early this year.

In the competition, the students had to work with participants from three other countries, including students from the US and UK.
The ‘company’—Vulture Aviation (a company comprised of four teams)—was given 43 hours to design a floating settlement in the atmosphere of Venus. A settlement had to be designed for a ‘sweet spot’, which is located 56 kilometres from Venus and which has conditions that could support life. Other details such as how humans would live, safety aspects, security, budgeting and industries that could be set up had also to be looked into.

Terming the experience ‘brilliant’, Akhil Relekar said the competition was very ‘rigorous’. “Those 43 hours were very strenuous,” Relekar said.

Relekar said the teams initially had disagreements and quarrelled a lot but overtime they started to bond.
“Interacting with participants from around the world was an eye-opener,” said Relekar. Kochar echoed Relekar’s views on disagreeing with each others’ views.

“We had a hard time with others in our team. There was a lot of clash of ideas,” said Kochar and added that they had tough time figuring out the accents as well.

Although a teacher from the school accompanied them, a separate mentor (also known as the CEO of the company) was provided for the team to help them in difficult situations.
But the team is little disappointed about being placed second.

“We had a lot of hopes. It’s difficult to pinpoint the reason for us not standing first,” said

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement