The day started with the arrival at Andøya, a beautiful island that made up for the long journey we took. There, we were warmly introduced to the Team Space Camp and got to know the facilities. The rooms were comforting and the shower pressure was truly astounding. What a feast of an engineering task. The Niagara falls in carnate!
Feeling fresh rejuvenated, we made our way to the red room. Similar to a living room, we got comfortable on the couches and played some card games, including the infamous French Shuffle. You should play it sometime! 😉
Afterwards, we relished in the extravagant lunch prepared by the best cooking crew in Andøya Space Camp. Imagine soup and pancakes.
We stopped for a short trip at the most tropical of arctic beaches. A jellyfish-riddled strand swathed with gleaming, shiny, white sand.
Next, new people. The Grand Cornelius II (that’s true) and an entourage of star-spangled companions arrived with a spectacle of flamboyance and pizzazz. He carpe diemed and introduced the common world to the card game Cards Against Humanity. And that may or may not have been a good idea. It’s a slightly disagreeable game…
Oh, and Sofie and an astronaut (!!!) also arrived.
We had great fun, went to Dinner and played some more games. Until. The Team Space Camp prepared name-games for us. But you see, we were many. A plethora of personal alias’ to memorize. Nonetheless, we managed.
Satisfied and feeling accomplished, we appreciated the Pizza Party the Team Space Camp raised in our honor. We had so much fun and joy.
That is until the trouble makers came along…
Suddenly, we had nine more names to remember. How would that be possible? Fret not, it’s manageable. We played more name-games outside (it wasn’t cold) (but there mosquitos) (but they were the most despicable mosquitos you can imagine). Anyways. We went inside, listened to a short briefing of the camp and finally were send to rest.
What an enjoyable day 0.

// Cornelius, Nojus, Theresa

We started our day at 7:45 am with a nice morning activity which consisted of a run around the space camp followed by recreating different figures and symbols including the ESC acronym, with our bodies. After breakfast we had the pleasure of being guided around the facility, where we saw all different sectors of the program. Afterwards we had the opportunity to meet the leaders, who inquired about each sector and skillsets needed. After a typical Norwegian lunch we met Jannicke Mikkelsen. She briefed us about her history and journey of becoming the first ever female Norwegian astronaut. The motivating lecture was followed by a hike to the Andhuet mountain. The view from the top was amazing !! On the way home we had some more time to get to know each other and get familiar with our names, which came in handy, as we later on were introduced to ”The Murder Game”, where everyone got a victim they have to kill over the course of this week.
This marked the end of a successful first day in the European Space Camp.

// Adrian, Sara, Liam

Today was a really productive day! We managed to solder most of the sensors for our rocket, and we also came up with lots of ideas for the name and the scientific cases. There were also many, MANY kills today… space camp is not for the faint of heart. Never trust anybody, ESPECIALLY not the team members! In the evening, we had a crazy dance show, and everyone performed really well. Then, the team did a dance, and it was like okay I guess. After the dance, we went swimming in the Arctic Ocean. On the beach, we learned a really fun group dance called Belgijka. After that, we went to the sauna. It was a really fun day, and we are so excited to continue working on the rocket tomorrow.

// Maria, Jonathan and Emil

The day started by doing morning activities as always, however today we experienced an alien invasion. Thankfully we were able to stop it by running really fast.
Then we proceeded to finish the rocket work, and today there wasn’t any team that didn’t collaborate with each other. Telemetry was running around making sure that every sensor got calibrated and connected to the system. Flight modelling and sensors were making last minute fixes so that the room temperature didn’t show up as 14000 K. The payload team was rushing to mount all of the tested sensors onto the rocket.
Then we deployed the two weather balloons to test the atmospheric conditions (almost flying away ourselves…). And when everything was set and ready to fly, it was time for a signing and photoshoot session.
And the hottest part of the day: we named our rocket… PIRI PIRI!
We were so filled with joy, we screamed… POLSKA GUROOOM!!

//Sebastiao, Saumya, Sofie, Adam

The day started with space yoga, which was interesting to say the least. After that, we had a quick status meeting where we discussed preparation for the case work presentations. However, before starting the case work, we had two very interesting lectures by Paul Edward Schilbach about his rocket campaign experiences and standing out in the space industry. During this, Theo and Sara had a live interview by NRK. A very cool guy named Bjarne helped us with our case work. The case presentations went well-ish. Maria made a cool graph, which was very very very cool and one of the computers lost power during the presentation. Sadly, we had to say our goodbyes to Leanda who had to leave early. We had two more very cool and interesting presentations by Sophie Allen where we got to touch a part of the solar panel of the Hubble telescope with micro-meteor impacts and it tasted like bubblegum. Sophie also organised for us to launch paper rockets that we made using a bike pump. After that some people went swimming in the ocean and then went to the sauna. Lastly we went to the hut with a campfire where we made stickbread and roasted marshmallows, danced footloose and other dances, sang, walked on the beach and enjoyed spending time together.

//Silje, Gitansh, Theo

Dear diary, yesterday was a good but also one of the saddest days. Most of us woke up really sleepy due to staying up late near the bonfire the day before. In the morning we started with practising the “Footlose” dance that we had learned the evening before on the campfire. After an amazing breakfast we had an even more amazing lecture about meteorites. We also had the opportunity to touch them. They felt really heavy, cold and kind of magical. Afterwards we wanted to prevent the superior aliens from killing us, so we helped them find their lost fuel. That’s why we went on a treasure hunt. Luckily one team found the necessary fuel for the aliens and saved us. After our success it was time to receive our diplomas and prizes. After our diplomas we ate dinner in our fancy dresses which was absolutely amazing. After our stomachs were full we made our last preparations for the talent show. We all had really unique, funny and original presentations and it was both fun to watch and participate in. Especially one from the second group, which was really fun to watch. :slightly_smiling_face: Of course we can`t leave without the tradition to give everyone feedback on their paper plate attached to our back. Afterwards the only thing that was left was to have an unforgettable last night, where many went for a swim, sauna (with Jon as our sauna manager) and even baked a cake. We stayed up sooo late that some of us fell asleep together in the living room. It was just the best night ever!!!

// Andreas, Kevin, Jette