Students working on their design

A Technology Tournament held by Neston Rotary Club was recently attended  by four of our year nine students (Omar Boukassem, Luke Burkett, Alfie Briercliffe and Matthew Bonner)  in which they took part in  a design, construction and  operation challenge!   The aim of the day was to make a handling device so that a “radioactive meteorite” could be moved at a distance and placed in a safe zone. 

 

The activity proved to be a lot more challenging than thought, when it became apparent that the meteorite must be removed from a container, which had a small opening and that only limited construction materials were available. The Mosslands lads worked extremely hard and designed some excellent ideas for the gripping device.  

 

However, during construction their novel ideas just failed to  handle the “meteorite” safely.  Throughout the day students were engaged in creative thinking, problem solving and how to apply their understanding of the STEM subjects as a team, to complete their final product. The  Mosslands  device  was unfortunately narrowly beaten  in the final testing stage. However, the day allowed the students the opportunity to get a sound understanding of how the STEM subjects can be applied to everyday activities and how independent logical thinking and team work can help to combat a problem.

 

Overall it was a very successful and challenging day and thanks to the boys for taking part and to Neston Rotary Club for setting up the tournament.  Mosslands  looks  forward to future challenges set in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) arena – bring it on!