On Wednesday the Year 9 Extension Science Class travelled to Bunbury to participate in the Science and Engineering Challenge.
Managed by the Rotary Club of Bunbury-Leschenault, this day of activity allowed students to experience aspects of science and engineering they may not encounter in a school environment, and compete against other schools in problem-solving tasks using scientific and mathematical understanding in practical applications. The aim is to inspire students to make a difference in the world by exploring career options in science and engineering.
Students were challenged to build the most accurate catapult, the sturdiest Mars buggy, bridge or earthquake-proof building, as well as connect up the most houses to power other activities, competing against other local schools throughout the day.
Other Year 9 Science classes studying Forces and Structures this term have also been building bridges in the classroom. In groups they designed and constructed their bridge to span a 20cm gap using set materials (2 pieces of cardboard, 55 skewers, 1m of string and 12 hot glue gun sticks). Once built, the students enjoyed testing the strength of their designs by applying weights until they collapse.
A number of clever designs withstood the rigorous testing, with several constructions managing to carry more than 100kg. With no safe method of testing further, the following groups were declared the winning strong bridges:
- Boda Stocks, Kaiya Phillips, Alex Peck and Kobie Chromow
- Hugh Frost and Lachlan Wood
- Jake Knezevic, Ben Luplau, Josh Maisey and William Bennetts
- Emily Heathcote, James Christian and Elly Dawson
- Tom Rowe worked alone to produce his winning design.
Science teacher Mrs Jones was very impressed with the awesome strength of the designs and said, “In future we’ll need to use different materials, so the students’ designs can be fully tested.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.