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Barnwell Students Engineer A Win
Friday, 11th February 2011
Mrs Wilson, B&E Assistant reports:
On Monday 7th February, I had the pleasure of accompanying Alex Barr, Martha Huggins, Jemma Grigson, Lauren Jarvis, Jason Malcolm and Bradley Stewart to an Engineering Challenge day at IET Faraday in Stevenage.
When we arrived to find a wooden cut out of a body with two holes in it lying on a table I was a little concerned!!!!, however it was soon clear that this was part of the task ahead.
Each team of students were set a task of designing and building a device which would pick up two objects that were to simulate the heart and lungs and with a set of instructions, a video camera and £130 (which were referred to as 130 Faraday’s) the challenge began.
They had to make a video log explaining who they were and the roles they were to be playing during the task, what their aim was and how they were to achieve that aim. During the process they were to use their STEM skills to assist in the process of building a successful device, whilst spending as little as possible at the shop which provided materials and services to help build it.
The end goal was for each team to use the device to pick up the “heart” and “lungs” and place them in the correct position on the body; however this had to be done through a curtain with only a web cam as visual guidance. This was to simulate a surgeons prospective whilst performing key whole surgery and with only 60 seconds the complete the task the pressure was on.
The scoring was broken down into sections for example, planning; production and video log and each team were awarded points which led to the end result.
1st Richard Hale School
2nd BARNWELL SCHOOL
3rd Marriott’s School
Other participating schools were, Nobel, Thomas Alleyne and Hitchin Girls.
I would like to give a special well done to our students who managed to design and build an excellent device within the specified time and with cash to spare. They also got top marks for their video log and were impeccable ambassadors for the school.