Long Running High School Space Science Contest Will NOT Hold 2012 Competition

2012 UTSDC graphic.

The University of Toronto Space Design Contest (UTSDC), will not be holding a competition in 2012 and seems unlikely to be revived anytime soon.

The contest was an independent, student run organization operating out of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto and held annual competitions from 2004 until 2011 for high school students to solve challenging space-related science and technology problems.

But the contest website hasn't been updated since last years results were posted in May 2011, the contact form for the website is "offline" and inquiries to the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (which links from the UTSDC for contest "donations") have gone unanswered.

Brian Foo, Guangye Cao, Jonathan Scothorn, Alex Foo, and Stefan De Young, members of the Ottawa Carleton Educational Space Simulation (OCESS) 2007 UTSDC team.

According to a January 22nd, 2012 post from contest co-chairs Lucy Li and Steven Yu on the UTSDC facebook page:

Unfortunately, the student organizing committee will not be hosting the annual event for the 2011 - 2012 school year as we undergo internal reorganizations to ensure the success of future events. With that said, we are extremely glad that you express interest for this event, and we will definitely keep you up to date as our plans for the 2012-2013 school year take shape.

We are very sorry that we cannot entertain your enthusiasm this year, but we truly hope you will continue to join us for next year’s event, either as a high school contestant, or an undergraduate volunteer. We promise you it will be worth the wait.

According to the 2010-11 UTSDC sponsorship package, the operating budget for the contest was approximately $25,000 CDN with 2/5th's this total normally generated through registration fees from the participants and the remainder generated through a variety of sponsorship packages.

Past sponsors for the event have included the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Apogee Books, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Com Dev International (COMDEV), the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS).