A crop of space competitions

Three different competitions about space travel and spacecraft are on right now, so if you're fascinated by space have a look at these.

Secondary and college students have two contests to choose from. In one, you can win the chance to take charge of the multi-million pound spacecraft Cassini as it takes images of Saturn. This one is being run by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Queen Mary, University of London, and the deadline for entries is 14 November 2008. Email Laura Jackson at l.f.jackson@qmul.ac.uk for more details.

In the other competition for secondary and college students, you could find yourself in the Mojave Desert watching a launch of the world's first commercial space ship. You and a team need to come up with the best product that uses elements from the Virgin Galactic space programme. Go to www.missionvirgingalactic.com to register and find out more.

University students can get in on the design action too. The Student Aerospace Challenge invites undergraduate and graduate students to develop collaborative projects based on briefs relating to aerospace, engineering, maintenance, design and communication, business and finance. Registration opens from 1 October 2008. More information is available at www.studentaerospacechallenge.eu.

Win £5000 as the Young Scientist of the Year

The British Association for the Advancement of Science and DIUS have just launched the new National Science Competition. Aimed at young people aged 13-19, the competition will identify a UK Young Scientist of the Year and a UK Young Technologist of the Year to inspire other students and reflect the talent within UK schools for science and engineering.

Each winner will receive a personal cash prize of £5000, a once in a lifetime international science or technology trip, a trophy and opportunities to represent youth science at events across the UK and beyond over the following year. Entry forms, guidelines and more details about the prize can be found on the competition website. The deadline for entries is 28th November 2008.

Bring maths to life and scoop up the Plus New Writers award

Plus magazine is holding its annual competition to find the best new writers about maths. Set yourself the challenge of capturing maths in an engaging short essay. The competition closes on 31 March 2009. More details are available on Plus magazine's website.

Make a two-minute computer science video for YouTube

What are you burning to tell people about computer science? Create a two-minute movie or animation, stick it on YouTube and you could win a trip to Google and an eeePC. Your video can be about anything with a computer science theme, but if you're stuck for ideas, why not tell everyone what CS is, or how Google works – or maybe why CS is different from IT? The trip and computer prizes are available to A-level students, but there are other prizes that anyone can win too. The competition is being run by the University of Cambridge and Google, and the closing date is August 15 2008.

Can you build a cosmic website?

The Science Museum is launching a competition to release hundreds of stories from their new Cosmos & Culture exhibition on to the web. Join other astronomy enthusiasts, designers and web developers in an amazing mashup of creativity and ideas by creating your own websites with their objects. Plus you could win one of two £1000 prizes! You've only got until November 28, 2009 though, so hurry. Go to the competition webpage

The Computer Science Limerick Competition

This competition is mainly for fun but with small cs4fn prizes. A couple of times a year we put up a new first line of a limerick with a computer science theme. Your job is to complete the limerick. Full details here

Be part of the new space rush

Space is central to many computer technologies, from satellite navigation to the Internet. Now you could take part in a space experiment that might be key to a future technology. Win the chance to fly an experiment you design, to be carried on one of Surrey Satellite Technology's satellites in conjunction with the British National Space Centre. You need to be aged 14-18 and enter an initial submission (either team or individual) by February 28, 2008.

For further details see:

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