Stars in her eyes
Kaitlyn wins space competition
Sarah Jane McDonald A Mauchline Primary pupil will see one of her drawings blast off into space after winning a prestigious patch design competition.
Starry eyed Kaitlyn Lodge, 10, recently won the Mission Discovering Ayrshire 2016 design competition for her drawing of a rocket flying over Ailsa Craig with a saltire as the trail.
The primary six pupil’s galactic art work will now feature on t- shirts handed out to participants at this year’s Mission Discovery programme and will accompany a winning space experiment to the International Space Station.
Kaitlyn said: “I used the image of Ailsa Craig because it is a significant and an easily recognisable landmark to represent Ayrshire along with the green fields and the distinctive saltire trail for the spacecraft to represent Scotland. “I am literally over the moon I’ve won.” Mission Discovery is a week- long space school for 200 pupils and students from Ayr secondary schools and Ayrshire College.
Pupils and students will work on space experiments with NASA leaders and former astronaut Michael Foale with the winning experiment making its way into space where it will be carried out by a team of astronauts.
Proud mum, Kathleen Lodge said: “I’m so excited for her. She has always loved space and art so it was the perfect competition for her to enter, she has won £ 150 and is so into her books these days so her plan is to stock up her shelves for the summer holidays.”
Runners- up were Patryck Gwizdowski, 9, of Whiting Bay Primary on Arran, and Kelleigh Mawer, 10, of Ballantrae Primary.
Each of the finalist schools have received £ 1000 to be used to purchase science or technology resources, while Kaitlyn won £ 150 and Patryck and Kelleigh each received £ 100 as runners- up.
Chairman of the Ayrshire College Foundation, John Rainey, presented Kaitlyn with her prize at a special ceremony at school.
He added: “This is the most exciting project that the Foundation has been involved in. and the space patch design is one of the most important part of the Mission Discovery programme.
“We were overwhelmed by the high quality of the designs submitted.”
The Ayrshire College Foundation is funding the Mission Discovery space event which will take place between Monday, June 13 to Friday, June 17.