1st Astara Ganesha ITB

Description

Astara Ganesha is a biennial event organized by Himastron ITB to celebrate World Space Week, which takes place annually from October 4th to 10th. In addition to exhibitions, the event features seminars, olympiads, and various competitions.

Experience

Preliminary Round

I participated in this competition during the early months of my 12th grade. Unfortunately, I couldn't partner with Rakha , as he was already in his first semester at ITB, studying Civil Engineering. Instead, I teamed up with a classmate, Rachel . The competition took place roughly a month before the KSN 2021 .

The preliminary round consisted of numerous straightforward multiple-choice and true-or-false questions. This stage wasn't particularly memorable for me, as I can't recall any specific details. However, we managed to advance to the semifinal round without much difficulty.

Semifinal Round

I believe the semifinal and final rounds were held on the same day, although I'm not entirely sure. In the semifinal round, the format resembled a quiz bowl where the jury posed questions, and teams raced to answer them. The questions were mostly fun facts about astronomy, with a bit of math and physics mixed in. The challenge wasn't too intense, and we performed well, earning a spot in the final round.

Final Round

The final round featured a mystery box challenge. We had to select a box and answer the question inside, then present and explain our solution to the jury. Fortunately, we received a celestial mechanics problem, which is my favorite topic 😎. Although I don't remember the exact question, it was comparable in difficulty to OSP problems. The only little part I remember is that I used the angular momentum equation to get the eccentricity. I think the question was asking about the eccentricity?

$$|\vec{L}| = \mu \sqrt{GMa(1-e^2)}$$

In the end, we secured first place in the Astara Ganesha competition.