Mitchells Plain’s, Zayaan Abdurahman, Chosen to Visit NASA

For the Space South African Space Design Competition, High School learners are given the task of creating a city on the moon. Sounds easy but it isn’t. You are given 24 hours to show how your city can sustain human life and that means that you have to understand physics, biology, mathematics and quite a bit of engineering. In short, you have to be pretty smart and Mitchells Plain’s Zayaan Abdurahman is most certainly one of those smart learners.

Competing against 109 learners from nine schools at the University of Cape Town, the grade 11 Mondale High Learner impressed a panel of judges that included both academics and experts working in the space industry.  She was chosen as one of the 8 learners  that will represent South Africa at the International Space Settlement Design Competition, taking place in the US, Orlando. 

To be more precise, Zayaan will be competing at the Kennedy Space Center, the home of NASA and the place where rockets are launched into space. 

At the competition, she will be up against more than 200 learners from across the world, where she will have up to 48 hours to once again build a space city and will once again have to impress the judges.

Of her achievement, she credits her physics teacher,Ms Boonzaier, for introducing her to the competition and her grandma for building her interest in outer space. She is excited about visiting the space centre and the opportunity to collaborate with learners from across the world.