Year 5 STEMWorks Day sponsored by Renishaw plc

June 20, 2014

Sixty excited eleven year olds, including twenty from Inglefield House and The Grange, arrived at Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls on the morning of 10th June to take part in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Day.  Although they expected to represent their own schools from Monmouth and the surrounding area, they were quickly mixed together and reformed into groups containing a representative from five separate schools.

The workshop was expertly run by Simon Kettle from STEMWorks, who began by showing the boys and girls a film of a ‘human cannon ball’, which immediately grabbed their attention, and discussed with them the features that made the man travel smoothly through the air.   Simon went on to introduce the main event which was to design, build and test a vehicle which could carry a fresh egg the furthest distance, without breaking, after having been launched up a ramp using a pneumatic firing system.

The teams came up with inventive solutions and worked very well together.   They enjoyed testing their prototypes using rubber eggs, which was just as well as numerous eggs escaped from their vehicles and were to be found bouncing all around the Hall! A delicious lunch was enjoyed by all and while in the Dining Room one boy was heard saying, “I wish I was a girl so that I could come here to eat every day!”   After a friendly game of football the teams returned to improve their designs and prepare for packaging fresh eggs in their restyled, cushioned and sturdier creations.

Launching proved to be great fun, as shown in the photographs, captured by Linda Wright, local photographer and former member of the Science Department at HMSG.  All teams produced successful vehicles in terms of making the eggs fly considerable distances, but the winners’ design also ensured that after landing and rolling furthest along the floor, the egg was completely unscathed.

The competitors were presented with certificates and Renishaw goodies by Mrs Simonne Watts, whose role includes schools liaison on behalf of the company.   All were most grateful to Renishaw for meeting STEMWorks’ costs for the day and hope that the experience can be repeated next year.

Mrs Kavanagh, Head of Physics

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