During Week 6, the Year 8 students participated in a wind tunnel challenge workshop facilitated by Questacon Smart Skills. The workshop took students through the innovation process of think, make, try and refine.
“We learned about wind-tunnels, indoor skydiving, ‘proto-storming’ and MacGyver,” said Year 8 student Marc Aquino, who enjoyed the challenge of engineering an object using limited materials that will float in a wind tunnel for a minimum of ten seconds. “Some prototypes were successful,” added Marc, “but others… not so much.”
The scientific enquiry process encourages and allows students to learn from their mistakes, which Questacon facilitator Shaun says is integral and invaluable to the learning process as a whole. The workshop also reinforced scientific concepts such as air resistance and lift, allowing students to learn about what makes certain shapes and materials more effective than others, and how to use these to their advantage in their designs.
“We all enjoyed our experience with Questacon, said Marc. “We were introduced to many new skills and many of us would love to do it again!”
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