The event was held by ISSET in Oxford, named Mission Discovery 2024. It consisted of seven teams with about five people in each team.

The idea was to make an experiment under the five day period, the winning team will have their idea sent to the ISS for it to be carried out. I was in Team 4 along with my teammates, Alex, Florence, Eve and Tannishta.

Every day lecturers from different aspects of science talked about the different things that you have to account for in space.
Our budget was £500, and we were given a restriction of a 10x10x5 cm box. The mentors and hosts also would help us when we had any questions. Jack and Issie were the mentors, and Julie and Dan were the hosts of the program, Steve Swanson was the astronaut. Overall it was a great experience and I learned lots of cool stuff.

We hoped to have a way to efficiently produce enough oxygen through our experiment to make long space travel more convenient. Originally we came up with 21 ideas. Then we took the three best ones and researched them in pairs and presented it to the rest of our team.

For the presentation, each of us had different roles so that when asked questions all of us would be easily able to answer them. And since one of the aspects was teamwork, it would show the judges that we did in fact work well together and all of us contributed equally.

We were really excited when they announced us as the winners. Honestly, it felt unbelievable.

Shobhit T, Year 12