STEM Challenge
On the 25th June, we took thirteen Year 8 and 9 students to the University of Hertfordshire to take part in a STEM Challenge against other schools across the county. Two students from each school were part of a multischool team and competed in 3 of 4 available tasks that covered Forensics, Medicine, Robotics and Engineering.
Alice Gil-Dignam and Bex Drury were part of the team that were overall winners and will be competing in the Finals next year. Millie Fowler and Lola Eyre were part of one of the teams that performed the best in an individual task. All the students were amazing, learning new skills, working well in teams with students they had never met before and showing enthusiasm and perseverance in their tasks. Well done to all who took part and good luck to our finalists next year.
“I really enjoyed my time learning new skills that will be helpful for the future. It was nice to connect with people that I have never met before. I particularly enjoyed making the cars as it was interesting to overcome struggles with my team to make it work. Thank you for the experience.” Isla Bowkett
“I originally went in thinking it was a just a learning day, but it ended up being that and a competition. We were put into teams, one person you knew and two you didn’t, you had to work in those teams for the whole day. I liked the instructors as they never gave us the answer, only hints to steer us in the right direction, which made us all come to our own unique conclusions, creating many inventions and ideas. We programmed a robot, learned how to do CPR and the readings for the vital signs. At the end was the presentation, everyone shuffling around in anticipation. My team came runner up for two things; however, we did win the whole UH Science Challenge day!! Our team was presented with trophies, and we were just as surprised as each other. We had worked well together considering we were strangers, whilst having a fun time. I would do it again, as it was very fun and I learned some vital skills in CPR, logical, creative skills in robotics and compromise in programming.” Alice Gill-Dignam
I found the ‘science made simple’ presentation very interesting. We were shown lots of exciting experiments that famous STEM people have performed to help them make their discoveries. In one of the experiments, we wore glasses that showed us the different colours that came from the different lights. I enjoyed it because it gave me a different perspective on the colours we see around us and that lights are not just the colour they seem. From the presentation I learned that when we send someone to Mars we won’t be able to bring them back because we wouldn’t be able to store enough fuel in the rocket. I became interested in the topic because it made me think about the different ways we could make fuel last longer or how to make fuel on Mars. I also learned that Cecilia Payne discovered that Hydrogen and Helium are the dominant elements of the Sun and stars. Her boss didn’t believe her at first until lots of other people repeated the experiment and agreed that she was correct. Overall, I found ‘science made simple’ very fun. Especially as they included us in their presentation. They also related the work of previous STEM people to modern day jobs that you can study for if you are interested in those particular discoveries.
