Awards made during 2020-2021
Due to COVID restrictions, only three Awards were made in November 2020. However, all the successful applications were made by groups of students who were felt to be making a real, hands-on contribution to engineering projects, both technically and commercially. A total of £10 500 was distributed in the first session.
UGRacing
An Award of £6 000 was made to UG Racing as a contribution to their Electric and Driverless Vehicle projects which Fraser Cowie described to the Trust.
see below for information about UGRacing
GU Rocketry
GU Rocketry received an Award of £1 500 towards their project to design, build and launch high-powered rockets from Scotland described by Jack Tufft.
see below for information about GU Rocketry
GU Orbit
An Award of £3 000 was made to GU Orbit for their Astraeus-01 project.
see below for information about GU Orbit
UGRacing is the Formula Student team representing the University of Glasgow. They are a team of 136 students who design and build a single seat race car to compete against other universities at Silverstone in an international competition held annually in July. For the first time in the UGRacing’s history, they will be entering into three separate categories at the competition in 2021. UGR20, the car which began development in August 2019 and should complete manufacture in Spring 2021, will be entered as their Combustion Vehicle (CV). Over the last few months, they have also been hard at work developing a concept for an Electric Vehicle (EV); the designs will be presented to the competition judges and manufacture will begin in Autumn 2021. Finally, they will be using the software developed by the Driverless sub-team to compete in the Driverless Vehicle (DV) category. (download more here – this is quite a large pdf)
GU Rocketry designs, builds and launches high-powered rockets from Scotland. Having now grown to 60 members, ranging from first year undergraduates to PhD candidates, they aim to bridge the gap between education and industry, preparing students for a successful career in the Space Industry through practical, hands-on experience. By working closely with various companies throughout Scotland, GU Rocketry will complete a series of launch campaigns, with increasing altitude goals while developing new technologies – a first for student rocketry in Scotland. The GU68 grant will enable them to fund key components for future launches and will help to establish a solid foundation for years to come. (more here)
GU Orbit is a student-led society of over 40 students at the University of Glasgow, and their project is to develop and launch a Cubesat, a type of nano-satellite, into space. Working on a real-life space project contributes to thinking and working as mature engineers and provides invaluable hands-on experience which goes beyond any University course. Additionally, members working on the project practise communication, teamwork and negotiation skills and some of the graduating members from last year stayed in the space industry.
Astreus-01 is a nano-satellite mission orbiting at around 500km altitude. The satellite has a camera on board which will capture images of the earth and at the end of themission, a parachute-like membrane will be deployed to slow down the satellite. As a result, the spacecraft will lose altitude much faster and eventually burn onto earth’s atmosphere much sooner than otherwise. This means the satellite will spend less time being a space junk, which is an important space concern. There is a visual explanation here, and a short video here.