LAHORE: Six teams from Lahore have made it to the semifinals of the eighth Asian Regional Space Settlement Design Competition, which is to be held in January next year.
A total of 14 teams participated from Pakistan.
The Om Shanti Retreat Centre in Gurgaon, India, will host 10 semifinalist teams and five runners-up teams – both of which can have a maximum of 12 students each – from January 25-28.
Lahore Grammar School (LGS) 55-Main Gulberg, which won the competition last year, has qualified for the semifinals this year as well.
The other teams include Aitchison College, LGS Defence, LGS Johar Town Team A and LGS Johar Town Team B.
A team from Beaconhouse School System, Defence secured a runners-up position and will also head to India for participating in the semi-final.
Each year the students have to develop a design concept for an orbiting space settlement.
This year, they were asked to design a city in an orbit around Mercury.
The LGS (Johar Town) team leader, Zaeem Khalid said that the teams will be given a scenario a week prior to the semi-final competition to start their initial research work.
“The actual work starts when you get to interact with the rest of the teams there and work on the design proposal,” Khalid said.
Khalid also said that his team had a very good chance in the semi-finals this time. “I belive we have a strong team,” he said.
The 15 teams, once they reach India, will be combined to form five teams. Each team will be allowed as many as 40 members and will be required to engage in team building sessions before working on their design presentation. The students will get less than 24 hours to work on a slide presentation.
The teams will be allowed 35 minutes each to present their proposals, which will be followed by Q&A sessions by the judges.
The best two teams will be selected to participate in the International Space Settlement Design Competition, which will be held at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. The selected Asian teams will compete with 10 other teams from around the world in July 2012.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 8th, 2011.
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Well this is wonderfull! I am from Delhi and I participated in ARSSDC in 2008. It was real fun and the best part of it was to meet people from Pakistan! The team I worked with was LGS defence. Such cross border interactions are very crucial to understand each other better and the fact that people from the other side are just so like us! More than the competition itself, which happened in the last 2 days for our 5 days stay, what we really did was get to know each other and form lasting bonds.
Noida is close to delhi... these teams can capture Delhi from there... we will teach these children how to defeat delhi in our you tube videos....
As far the comments by all the kabana people talking about how they won the competition last year..........i was a part of team aitchison that year and i know you guys had bought the win.......... a guy from your indian partner team told us you guys had had the rfp way before time..........so stuff it........... with love reshma
sorry guys, i did go a little overboard in my comment
I don't get sarcasm in serious situations .. :P
I totally agree with Resham and why are you targetting the person who was interviewed? It is clear that the writer is only giving a reference over here. It can be termed as jealousy? Secondly, LGS Defence never won the ISSDC while LGS 55 main won the ISSDC last year. I'm sorry to say this but please think before you comment that why has the writer written this?
Best Regards, Ayesha.
Anyways, Congratulations everyone who made it to the semi finals. :) I'm one of the Alumni of the competition and believe me that it is an awesome experience Best of Luck!
@Sweet Dee Obviously. Puuri conspiracy hai. Against Islam and Pakistan. Couldn't be that he is one of the thousands of Pakistanis that actually think this way.
... and Mahnoor. We're talking about the ISSDC. LGS Defence never won the ISSDC. LGS 55 main did win the ISSDC last year. True Story. and mentioning Mr. Zaeem is only a reference. The article still concentrates on the ISSDC.
LGS Defence won the competition this year, not the last year. Mahnoor please correct yourself.
congragulations to all the teams who qualified..but i believe the article is a bit incomplete for if view of one then viems of all should be included to give fairer view..anyways best of luck teams :)
Congratulations and best of luck to all participants.
@Saad
You've got to be kidding me. It's pretty obvious that "Adil" is either being sarcastic (very poor attempt though) or is an Indian masquerading as a Pakistani (yes, the comment is that idiotic).
@Saad: I hope you understand Adil's remark was sarcastic and should be taken as such.
I think this needs a lot of editing. I mean, the facts aren't straight in the first place. LGS Defence won the competition last year, not LGS 55-Main. Thats a crucial mistake considering this article is about qualifying teams. Second, this article tells us more about Mr. Zaeems hopes for the future than about the Competition itself, and as i recall the focal point of this was the International Space Settlement Design Competition, not LGS Johar Town's earnestness to win it. And i agree with Saad. Congratulations to all qualifying teams this year are in order. May the best team win!
Congratulations. and wish you all the best.
@ET you did not mention age of students among many other things
@Saad in any India Pakistan forum these kinds of comments are inevitable. You can't avoid it completely. Don't let it affect your spirit.
@Adil: You simply talk non-sense....Its people like you who have demean Pakistan and will keep doing so...you are talking of HINDU...I am a Hindu but have learn so many things from Islam also...and one of these things are through the saying of ALI the caliph..."GET THE KNOWLEDGE...FROM WHOEVER YOU ARE ABLE TO"...you call yourself a Muslim but sorry to say...you cant even spell the word ISLAM properly...
Yayy AC. Yayy JT. (peace yo).
This article has its facts all wrong. Last year LGS Defence won the Semi Finals. Isn't that right?
I am a member of one of the teams that qualified for this competition this time, and I mus t say that Adil's comment (2nd from top) offended me. We are here trying to raise our country's flag by participating in such a prestigious competition, instead if being encouraged and to do our best, we are showered with such trivial prejudices against our hosts. This competition is not only about the best a school can do in the event but also an excellent opportunity to intermingle with people from around the world.
Who cares what the name of the place of accommodation is? There are budget hotels like "Dreamland" (see the irony here) etc. and no one ever has a second thought about the name. Its you people with your prejudiced and fragile egos that get in the way of progress. "deliberately trying to humiliate us" - LOL .. I mean, what is your problem? Why can't you see 6 Pakistani teams compete against 4 Indian teams in an INTERNATIONAL event? Why don't I hear a "Congratulations!" instead of "boycott"?
By the way, these are the semi finals they are talking about here in the article, the finals are held at the NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Good job guy... Keep it up, our prayers are with you... Tell the Indians that Pakistan is not what they think about it.
@Adil: LOL Adil i just wanna say LOL
We should boycott this. firstly because it is held in india and secondly look at the name of the centre where it will be hosted om shanti om. this is done deliberately to humiliate us with hindu culture.
Beautiful, this is what i'm talking about. This is what ought to be Pakistan and its youth's destiny.