Odysseus Contest 2017

I am Andreas Vatistas and I am a member of PLANet B team from Greece- which won third place honours and the ‘technical merit’ award in the Pioneer’s category of Odysseus Contest 2017.

I found out that I am interested in Maths, Physics and Astronomy, when I was very young, as I would always try to understand how certain phenomena work. Thus, I grasp every opportunity to participate in contests or lessons regarding these subjects, such as the Odysseus competition.

I have participated in many competitions so far, winning some, but learning a lot in every one.

I am currently a student (3rd grade of Highschool) of Zanneio Experimental Lyceum of Piraeus.

I also enjoy playing the guitar and I am a football player of Ethnikos Piraeus (3rd division, Greece).

My name is Robert Gordon and I am currently studying Aerospace Engineering at the University of Glasgow. In 2017 I entered into the Odysseus II Contest with the project “SAROBI Titan Mission”, along with team mate Sara Berent, which aimed to explore the possibility of landing an animatronic rover onto the surface of Titan to search for the existence of a new type of life.
The Odysseus contest was truly a once in a lifetime experience for me. I had the opportunity to use the knowledge that I’ve gained from my current University studies in a unique and creative way, allowing me to take my first steps towards a future career in the space industry. I learned a lot about the space industry from my time at the Euro Space Center in Belgium and at the Cité de l’espace in Toulouse, France, and also had the chance to get to know other people with similar aspirations to me. I hope I will be able to keep in touch with the people I met through the contest and maybe one day I might even end up working with them at some point in the future, who knows!

I am Daniel Movila, a third-year architecture student from Iasi, Romania, who has long been fascinated by the way architecture can play its role in the development of the space industry.

Since high-school, I have taken part in several projects concerning astronomy and space applications. In 2014, my team and I went to Greece to participate in a European project Commenius, which first introduced us to the notion of space exploration.

Furthermore, during past summers I’ve been taking part in architecture camps with a concern of environmental issues, such as Rosia Montana: a widely known case of mining gold using cyanide in Romania, from which I learnt the importance of new technologies to be developed and applied to daily usage.

I am very fond of the emerging technologies which will provide the basis of the future development, such as 3D printing (houses and more), Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and all tech involving the Internet of Things. Used correctly, and in use of solving strident global issues can represent a solution to the crisis we are currently striving to manage at a global or universal scale.

My name is Andreea, I’m from Romania and I am currently a student at the High School of Computer Science, in Bucharest. I have for all my life followed my passion for technology. Since 2013, I have participated in many international and regional contests, mainly in the field of informatics and technology. I won second place honours in the Odysseus Contest twice, 2016 and 2017.

My name is Aleksander Knutsen, and I was born in 1996 in Norway. I currently live in Trondheim where I study for a Master’s degree in computer science.

In my high school years, I received multiple awards in mathematics, including two diplomas from the Norwegian Mathematical Olympiad and a first place in a math competition hosted by my school. In early 2015, I became part of a team sending weather balloons to near space. This became the basis of my Odysseus project “High-Altitude Balloons on Mars”, and has in turn earned us exclusive invitations and presentations from climate scientists and celebrities alike.

In 2015, I was selected to be a participant in the European Space Camp, a weeklong stay at a rocket range and research facility where we learned about the process of creating and launching a sounding rocket.

In 2016, my team and I released a high-altitude balloon to near-space. I was also the leader for the youth group in the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue.

In 2017 I was one of the finalists in the international Odysseus II contest. There I received second place and a special recognition for scientific rigor. Later that year I was nominated for the Young Excellent Researchers Award from the Research Council of Norway.

My name is Sara, from the UK and I am currently studying Immunology at the University of Glasgow. I have participated in a number of contests, such as the EU Competition for Young Scientists (2015), the International Environment & Sustainability Project Olympiad (2015) and of course the Odysseus Contest (2017). In the latter, I teamed up with my friend Robert and our project The SAROBI Titan Mission won the Special Recognition Award for the most Inspiring Technological Project.