Building Bridges
Year 9 students have been taking part in a STEM Disaster Challenge
On 24th November, we welcomed Tolulope Olajide from the Smallpeice Trust to work with a group of Year 9 students on a railway challenge.
Students were placed into teams. The day started with a fun ice breaker where they had to build a tower using only paper. Students then learnt about compression and tension and how to build a simple electromechanical circuit to run a train.
The main challenge involved two tasks in which student teams were asked to design and build a robust and structurally sound bridge to support a pre-made track running across the top of it. For the second part of the challenge they were asked to design and build a small battery powered vehicle to travel the length of the bridge from one end to the other whilst carrying a 100g weight. The students had to consider not only the time constraints, but also budgetary and aesthetical aspects.
The STEM Day concluded with the testing of each team’s model and a winning team was selected based on product performance, team working, aesthetics, cost and marketing.
It was tough choosing a winning team as every student worked so hard within their teams. However congratulations to Myer, Amy, Georgina, Poppie, Jordan and Georgia for their excellent train and bridge designs which carried the most amount of weight and came within budget.
The Smallpeice Trust are an independent educational charity that run hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) activities and exciting engineering courses for pupils in Years 6-12.
3218