Apollo young astronaut competition final installment

After the cancellation earlier in the year of NASA in Aberdeen, our STEM Ambassadors decided to launch a 3 part competition that can be completed at home with help from parents!

We hoped this would teach kids more about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and help nurture their passion for it but would also keep them entertained during lockdown and easter and summer holidays!

We have received fantastic engagement, not only from kids and parents but the wider community also being featured on local radio and newspapers.

We are excited to bring you our last and final instalment of the competition, part 3!

Apollo is looking for the next generation of aspiring astronauts to help us on our space discovery missions and already have gained some great new Apollo astronauts! We are passionate about inspiring the next generation of engineers. It is something that makes up part of our core values and something we actively get involved in.

After successfully building your rocket, you landed on Mars and deployed your rover. You are now ready to return back to Earth to finally complete your epic space voyage! To finish the final part of your mission you must build a landing craft that will bring you, the astronaut, safely back to earth! Are you up to the challenge?

All you have to do is send us a video of your landing craft bringing an egg down to the ground! You can make it with anything you have in your house, make sure you put ‘APOLLO’ on the side so it gets entered into the competition!

In order to successfully complete this challenge, you will need to drop an egg (acting as the astronaut) from a height of about 2 meters and land it without causing the egg to crack.

Some items that may be useful when building your landing craft are as follows:

  • Paper
  • String
  • Elastic bands
  • Drinking straws
  • Plastic bags
  • Egg boxes

Email your entries to: entries@apollo-oe.com with your video, name, age and any bloopers you may have.

We will review all submissions and give out certificates!

And lastly, HAVE FUN!

Attached is an instruction sheet for adults and teachers to ask the children during the activity that will hopefully inspire STEM learnings and think about the engineering behind the design.

The deadline for the competition is the 28th of August and we will begin to send out certificates on that Friday.

We can’t wait to see all your landing crafts! Good luck!

Download competition instructions