Regional Final in Turin, Italy

28-29 April, 2016

Altec and Politecnico di Torino organized the regional finals for Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and Malta in Turin at Altec premises. Six Pioneers teams coming from Italy and Croatia participated to the activities. The two Explorers teams from Italy and Croatia as well joined the other contestants in Graz, Austria.

During the two days there were visit opportunities to the Thales Alenia Space facilities, the Altec building and the Turin Polytechnic aerospace laboratories. In particular it was possible to visit the Cygnus module production, the iXV suborbital re-entry vehicle recovered after its mission, mars terrain, mars prototypes, control centres and cubesats.

There were lectures as well as meeting opportunities between students, teachers, space engineers and operators. Face to face discussions were a great chance to enhance the enthusiasm in space activities and exploration. All the students were really engaged with the projects.

All the projects had an excellent quality and all the presentations were extremely professional, especially when considering the age of the participants.

Sara Molinaroli, Linda Benin and Cesare Dal Degan, with their professor Massimo Bubani from Belfiore (Verona – Italy) presented a very beautiful mockup with a robot dedicated to look for habitability zones around stars, an argument of special interest during these days due to new discoveries.

Another project looking for new habitable planets, with a very beautiful presentation, was prepared by Lorena Kerep, Lorena Cvetković and Dominik Filipović, with their teacher Ana Popović, coming from Samobor – Croatia.

Mars was addressed by many projects. Elisabetta Callegaro, Francesco Roana and Giacomo Dal Toso with their teacher Marco Zoso from Valdagno (Vicenza – Italy) prepared a project of a Mars base with a lot of details. They made project tee-shirts as well.

A very special approach was followed by Tamara Rinati, Letizia Paone and Martina Auditore with their teacher Concetta D’Arrigo coming from Santa Teresa di Riva (Messina – Italy). They recorded a television program that was talking about technical discussions assembled with a lot of fun. For Turin’s finals the added a second episode very appreciated by the public.

Luca Cattani, Davide Cattani, Elia Mazzari and their teacher Elena Gabbiani from Piacenza (Italy) decided to place their very detailed base on the Moon. Their presentation provided a lot of information to sort out a big problem: how to make it self-sustaining.

There was another team: the winning one. Giulia Bassani, Nicola Timpano and the teacher Tommaso Marino from Collegno (Torino – Italy) prepared a mock-up and an excellent project presentation for a Mars base. They will show it in the European finals again, with additional refinements as the project is ongoing. In the meantime Giulia is training to become an astronaut.

The organizing team in Turin wishes to all the participant a successful follow on in their space adventures.