Year 7 Army STEM Day
On Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st of October, Year 7 had the opportunity to work with the Army Engagement Team, based at Sandhurst. This gave the students a chance to work together on a variety of activities ranging from tank building to problem solving. The pupils also learnt about many different careers.
I really enjoyed the army stem day. Every activity was really enjoyable and engaging. I am really thankful that the army specialists came in because they were really nice and encouraging. I didn’t have a favourite. All of them were amazing. I was persuaded to consider about joining the army when I am older. They taught me that being in the army isn’t only being about combat, you can do lots of other jobs like: Finance, Medical, Healthcare, Suppliers, just to name a few. I would like to say thank you to all the army visitors and Mrs Warburton for organising the whole day.
Thank you
Mia Schillaci-Rowland 7SR
I learnt a lot on Army Day while also having a great day. My favourite activity was building the tank and doing the activities with the tank. I found the making especially fun because it was so hard. Betty had the folder that told her how to build it and the rest of us weren’t allowed to see it. Betty couldn’t touch anything but the rest of us could, and nobody was allowed to talk. It was very funny as we had to communicate through hand gestures and noises, when we got pieces into the right place, we all clapped each other.
I learnt that there are over 200 jobs in the army and only 30% of them are related to combat. Previously I thought that there were just a few jobs and that they were all about fighting.
Caitlin Grayson 7KI
What did I learn?
I learnt how to solve maths puzzles but not just maths puzzles, all sorts of puzzles. I also learnt how to work as a team without speaking. As well as a small team I was able to work as a big team.
Careers I didn’t know about?
There was lots of careers that I didn’t know about. For example: nearly all of the medical jobs, musical jobs and much more!
My favourite/best part?
My favourite part was when I got a ball in the bucket on my second try using the tank. I also enjoyed the puzzle and code cracking because that might help me with my escape room skills.
Lucy John 7KI
My favourite activity of the day was the Catapults. I love making stuff and would love to be a Cyber Engineer. The Army members were very fun and I’m happy I learnt about Cyber Engineers. The training sounds so fun and I’m very glad they came. Its amazing how many people join the army and save peoples lives. My grandad fought in a war, he lost on of his fingers. I’d love to travel to different places making and repairing things.
Thank you Army
Kate Taylor 7KI
Today was a great day not just fun but useful as well as it gave us a good idea what the army is actually like. We learnt that there are lots of different career paths from frontline soldier to chefs in the army. If I was in the army I would be a dog handler because I love dogs and as I won’t really have to do much fighting. All the activities were really fun, my favourite activity was code breaking because we were all in smaller groups so we could do more. I found the barrel one most frustrating as I was rope leader so I had to direct people and some people wouldn’t cooperate. In all it was a really fun day and it was a brilliant opportunity to have.
Melissa Attwell 7KI
I had two favourite activities. The first one was probably the ‘tank’ activity because I felt it was a very good / fun activity for team building! I was the team captain and it was very hard not to talk or touch anything because it was so tempting to!
My second favourite was the code cracking activity because it was very fun yet also very hard! It was very hard because I haven’t really done things like that before but it was fun for that same reason as well!
Clemmie Fells 7SR
I enjoyed everything that we did on stem day. I learned lots about the army for example, I thought the army was only about fighting but there are lots of other jobs that you can do. My favourite activities were the barrel and making the tanks. The Army people were really nice and I loved stem day.
Esmee 7SR
My favourite part of the army day was building the tanks and the firing of them. The tank building was my favourite because it was really funny and interesting. The monitors were very nice and friendly. Building the tanks was interesting because we had to work in silence and build it. The only person that was allowed to see the plan was the captain. Our team won the building and later the firing in the bucket.
Inès
My favourite activity was building the tank. We had to do it in silence and one person had the instructions but could only point, not talk. Our team won! We got to ride in it and shoot balls and try and get them into a bucket. We got a pen for being the winning team.
Darcey
Army Stem Day for me was packed full of fun things. Our first period was the assembly. I found this really fascinating finding out about what our instructors jobs were was really interesting. Some go there jobs might seem like everyday jobs but if they didn’t do those jobs then the frontline people would not be able to survive. They all just looked like such a big family, then our barrel activity was really hard but at the end we all put as much energy into it as possible. Code Breaking was extremely difficult but when our instructor explained it to us it made more sense. The Catapult activity was confusing but really fun in the rain. Finally, the tank activity was the hardest we had to be silent and build a tank unfortunately we lost but driving and building it was actually really fun.
Betsey Lopez 7SR
For me personally all of them taught me something.
Tanks: for the tanks, it taught me to communicate with others in a way other than speaking through actions, signals and teamwork. Even though my team didn’t win we all worked together as a team and we all got a fair challenge.
Break the Code: Break the Code helped me think more than I know. Some of them may have been a challenge but it improved my coding skills, also to spot little clues while working.
Catapult: Catapult was one of my favourite. All of us worked as a team to complete and create the best catapult we completed against other teams to see who’s goes the furthest.
Barrel: this was my favourite one because it made me think outside the box to get the barrel out the circle with only rope. We also couldn’t go inside the circle.
Lucija Waring 7SR
Today, was my Stem Army day. We had to go through a combination of challenges in our teams, to test our abilities. A few army members came in to lead these challenges, and help us out along the way.
A lot of questions were asked along the way, and I found out a lot about how long it takes just to finish training. There are a lot of roles to play in the army, which is quite important to do that role properly.
The army is a very hard job to take on. There are challenges and tricks which take a lot to be able to complete. Struggles and hard work is vital for the army.
So much was learnt from today, and that is thanks to the members that came into Presdales School. All the activities were so much fun, and I think everyone enjoyed it.
Athalie Buckling
For me I personally liked the red and blue tanks challenge because it had a lot of twists to it and how it was like a real situation where you couldn’t talk. When we also finished the soft ball game was fun as well and my team won overall and we won an army pen and it’s what I’m using right now to write this. The idea was incredible because how you had to be silent throughout the game/situation was very fun. In the building a catapult game we had to stop half way through because of the rain, so we never got to finish it but up to that point it was very fun and I thought with the time we had we would of finished it. The barrel one was very fun as well but we never found out about it and how to finish it until the teacher/army (Liv) told us, but we actually never finished it. The power point/assembly was very creative, how they had all the positions from the army and about the people who came and their journey.
PS I loved it!
Florrie Pidduck 7SR
I have really enjoyed my army stem day today; it was really fun and I got to learn so many things about the army that I never knew before. E.g., ‘did you know that the Army has over 200 jobs to choose from!’. We did so many awesome activities, catapulting, where we could build our very own Catapult based off an already built one, Tank building, where we built a tank big enough for us to sit in, and we weren’t aloud to talk and only one of us could see the instructions. Then after lunch we did the barrel where we had to pick up a barrel using ropes, it was fun but tricky and unfortunately my group weren’t able to finish it, finally we did code cracking, I really enjoyed the code cracking because it had loads of super cool code cracker games.
Personally, I would rate my Army Stem Day a ten out of ten, it had some really fun and enjoyable activities. My personal favourites were the code cracking and the tank building; however all the activities were brilliant!
Sienna Perry 7KI
