Over the July school holidays I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend CASE space school in Houston, Texas.

For two weeks, along with a group of girls from other girls schools in the South Island, Australia and Taiwan, I got to experience all the incredible things going on at the NASA Johnson Space Centre as well as explore the wider Houston area. We spent our days doing different space related challenges and competitions, from building and coding robots to constructing and launching rockets as well as completing a simulated Mars mission.

Over the two weeks we also worked towards completing ChallengeX, which involved us working in teams of 4 to create a business that would solve the growing problem of space junk. This culminated in us presenting a business pitch to some NASA engineers, which was both terrifying and an incredibly exciting opportunity. Along the way we got to meet some astronauts, get an insight into the ups and downs of space exploration and explore all the different NASA facilities. We somehow also managed to find time on our trip to see a major league baseball game, and get some shopping done of course! I met some awesome people and had the chance to learn some incredible things, and if you have the opportunity to go on this trip I would highly recommend it.

Amber Spurway Year 13