WINNERS FOR A 2ND YEAR! - Girls Into Engineering 2009 Rocket Challenge
A team of six Year 8 girls competed against the other secondary schools in North East Lincolnshire to defend the Girls into Engineering Challenge Shield, won last year, at the annual event held at the Grimsby Institute. Sofie Corn, Lauren Hough, Megan Knights, Molly Patterson, April Sant and Tamara Spencer organised themselves into pairs to complete all the tasks they had been set. Megan and Tamara worked on the rocket design. Sofie and Lauren created a ‘space patch’ to put onto the rocket and also produced the electronics to operate the warning lights and the motor. April and Molly built a launcher vehicle to carry the rocket to its destination. Students worked together in pairs on each of the tasks but also needed to work closely together as a team to ensure that all the parts were compatible.
All teams launched their rockets out of the hall – ours was extremely successful – ending up high in a tree outside of the area cordoned off for testing! It still wasn’t as good as our staff rocket which virtually ended up on the roundabout at Nuns Corner! Back in the hall our launcher vehicle successfully climbed the full length of the ramp – with a slight pause in the middle! - carrying the rocket safely to its destination, with the warning lights operating perfectly.
Prizes were awarded for various categories – Megan and Tamara won the prize for ‘rocket design and construction’. The overall results, once all the marks for all the different tasks were collated, were as follows:
3rd Place – St Mary’s – 730 points
2nd Place – Tollbar – 741 points
1st Place – Healing – 792 points – a magnificent 51 points ahead.
The team were deservedly crowned the overall 2009 Champions! meaning Healing retained the shield and successfully defended their title. A fantastic result.
The day allowed students to find out about employment opportunities within the field of engineering. All our students were a credit to themselves and the school – well done!
Helen Watcham & Tim Raine, Technology.
31st March 2009