Memorial High School students take part in space settlement design competition

Six members of the honors math society at Memorial High School recently participated in the space settlement design competition held at Houston's Johnson Space Center.

The students worked the weekend of Oct. 12-13 inside NASA's Building 9 under the direction of an engineer, who also functioned as a student team chief executive officer, according to a press release.

Participants in the competition from Memorial High School included Rebecca Grekin, Malina Maharana, Michael Ju, Sunny Kim, Anthony Xu and Brooks Berry.

"For the contest, many students pulled an all-night session," Phil Harter, a calculus teacher at Memorial, said in the release. "Ninety percent of the students did not sleep Saturday night. It was pretty intense competition, and the students loved the big dose of reality that this competition provided."

Competing students were asked to make specific proposals for a space colony in a 40-minute oral presentation before a team of engineers. The same team read all of the proposals before choosing the winning student team.

The 2012 competition drew 1,246 students from 11 states and 19 foreign countries.

Memorial High School is part of the Spring Branch Independent School District and is located at 935 Echo Lane, Houston.

For more information, call 713-365-5110 or visit mhs.springbranchisd.com.