SPACESHIP designs have brought Dunstable schoolgirls acclaim that really is out of this world.
Mill Vale Middle School teams have won first and second place in the Inner Space 2050 contest.
Physicist Professor Brian Cox presented the winners’ cup and medals at the final, held at the ExCel London exhibition and conference centre.
The national contest was run by the Chartered Institute of Building and the b-live Foundation and the final took place during the Ecobuild 2011 event.
Ecobuild exhibitor Dulux presented cute toy Dulux dogs to the Inner Space teams as an extra treat.
Year 7 students from 50 schools had taken part in the contest.
They had to come up with designs for a sustainable spaceship which could orbit Earth in 2050 if the planet was over-populated.
The idea was that the spaceship should have everything that 500 people would need to live there.
And the winners were Mill Vale students Annabel Powell, Chloe MacDiarmid, Elayna Jennings and Rachel Wootten, with their design, The Flying Care Wheel, which featured a series of spheres.
Second place went to Mill Vale pupils Jade Flenley, Neve Hampton, Lillian Cull-Simmonds and Kezia Hassall, with The Flying Venture.
Mill Vale teacher Jacqueline Channon said: “We were ecstatic. It is a tremendous honour for the school and a real achievement for the girls. They really did the school proud.”