The Space Experiment Competition for U.K. schools, which will see the winning team flying their entry on board a British-built satellite, has been won by Shrewsbury School with their proposal for an ionospheric scintillation experiment called POISE. Shrewsbury School, in Shropshire, England, beat five other groups from around the U.K. in the final stage of the competition, which was announced at an awards ceremony at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow (IAC) on Friday, October 3rd). The winning experiment is expected to measure variations in the ionosphere, which can affect the accuracy and safety of satellite navigation systems, and might also help to provide indications of impending earthquakes. The competition, launched earlier this year, challenged teams of 14 - 19 year olds to design and build a small, compact satellite instrument. The experiment will be flown as an additional payload on a low Earth orbiting satellite being built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), based in Guildford.The winning team had to overcome significant challenges to design their experiment within the tight constraints of the competition. Their instrument could be no larger than the size of a lunch box, weigh no more than one kilogram, and operate on less than one Watt of power. The competition has been sponsored by the British National Space Centre (BNSC), a cross-Government organisation that co-ordinates civil space activities in the U.K.