Competing against students from across the planet, Bundaberg's Jess Howard put together an idea that could change the future of space colonisation.
The Bundaberg State High School student travelled to the United States as a member of an Australian team in the International Space Settlement Design Competition.
Her team's challenge? To design a human settlement in the lunar highlands on the far side of the Moon.
She was chosen to go because of her aptitude in engineering and the experience has changed her entire career direction.
"My aspirations for after school have changed, I'd really like to do more of a space engineering thing, rather than going into the Army like I originally wanted," she said.
All teams are divided into divisions like structure and engineering, robotics, or habitation, depending on their proficiency.
"There are workshops that you go to before that tell you about your different departments and you go and see if that's what your thing is," she said.
"I was in structure myself, which was in charge of the whole design and creating the size of the settlement.
"We had to overcome the harsh conditions in the lunar highlands, we had to create technology to combat that.
"We managed to work as a team and get everything done and we came a pretty close second."
Thinking outside the box
Head of technology at the Bundaberg State High School Keith Hollege says the school has been a part of the design competition for about nine years, and has seen a lot of success.
"We got involved with the competition because it sounded very exciting to get students involved who are looking at the world of space or engineering," he said.
"What happens is around March we're given a press release. I think this year we're landing on a 'C' class asteroid and mining some precious metals.
"We've been very successful over the nine years in having eight students selected so far to go on the international space design challenge and I was lucky enough to go with two students in 2010."
The students compete as a school first in a national challenge, then individual students are selected to form an Australian team in the international challenge.
Mr Hollege says he continues to be amazed by the students ability to think through the problems they are presented with.
"Even in school we're working on our latest brief now and the students are learning to think outside the box," he said.
"I think with the troubles in the world [and] environmental issues... we need the creative thinkers, because the problems we've got today need them.
"If we keep going as we've always done, we're going to get the same results. So the fact that the next generation of students can think outside the square, maybe might have some very creative solutions to our world problems."