The sky's not the limit, it's just the beginning!
University of Southampton student Alex Kinnaird rocketed into first place in a national essay-writing competition after also being short-listed for engineering undergraduate of the year.
The third-year Space Systems Engineering student picked up the Engineering Subject Centre Student Award for 2010 for his paper about teaching engineering. Entrants were invited to put pen to paper about what they would do if in their tutors' shoes.
Alex was also one of 10 students from across the UK short-listed for the title of engineering undergraduate of the year in a competition run by Targetjobs and sponsored by npower. Judging career motivation and academic achievement, it was open to pre-final year engineering students. Finalists were invited to attend a special presentation event with guest speaker Michael Portillo.
Speaking about the competition, Alex says: "The entire process was excellent. It let me compete with some of the top undergraduates in the country and it was great to represent Southampton at such a prestigious event."
In December 2009, Alex was one of three Southampton students among the five finalists of a space technology innovation competition. Alex, Aron Kisdi and Adam White, all from the School of Engineering Science, were short-listed in the event run by the European aerospace company EADS Astrium.
Entrants were invited to submit an essay on a topic of engineering or physics that they are studying as part of their undergraduate or postgraduate degree. They were judged on technical merit, potential for the development of their idea and the quality of their presentation. Alex presented the best undergraduate project, describing fractioned satellites, looking at splitting sub-systems into groups of smaller satellites.