Romanian students have won 25 individual and team prizes in an international competition organized by NASA.

The NASA Ames Space Settlement Design Contest is an international competition that challenges high school and secondary school students to think about how people could live in space and describe sustainable space settlements.

Last year, over 3,000 students from 21 countries submitted their entries (close to 1,000) to this competition. Romanian students, competing individually or in teams, won 24 prizes and 21 honorable mentions.

This year, the number of participants hasn’t’ been announced yet. However, Romanians won 25 prizes, out of a total of 96 that were awarded. Only Indian students got more prizes (41). The contest also awards a grand prize, which this year went to a team from South Korea.

The Romanian students, who are enrolled at high schools and secondary schools in Bucharest, Constanta, Brasov, Ploiesti, and Medias, won 8 first prizes, 7 second prizes, and 10 third prizes. The competition awards prizes for each grade, for individual entries, small teams, and large teams.

In the Grade 12 category, a student from the Tudor Vianu High school in Bucharest won the individual first prize with a project called Ragnarok, and a large team from the Mircea Cel Batran National College in Constanta got the first prize for Enterprise.

Romania also had winners in the Grade 10 category, namely a small team from the International Computer High School in Constanta and a large team from the Tudor Vianu High School in Bucharest.

A student from the International School of Bucharest also won the first prize in the Grade 9 category, and so did a large team from the Ovidius High School in Constanta. Black Swan also brought the first prize to a Romanian student from the Mircea cel Batran National College in Constanta, in the Grade 8 category.

Moreover, a small team from Medias won the Literary Merit First Prize for their entry called Cruithne Space Station.

Find the entire list of winners here.

The annual contest, co-operated by NASA Ames Research Center, San Jose State University, and the National Space Society (NSS) is addressed to all students up to 12th grade (18 years old) from anywhere in the world. Individuals, small teams of two to five, and large teams of six or more are judged separately.

Students develop space settlement designs and related materials, which they send to NASA Ames for judgement. A particularity of this competition is that id only accepts paper entries (no electronic submissions are accepted under any circumstances) and has firm rules against plagiarism.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com