On Tuesday 26 November, two teams of excited Year 8 pupils arrived at Queen Anne's in Caversham for the local round in the first step of the annual National IET Faraday Challenge. The Institute of Engineering and Technology Faraday Challenge Days are STEM activity days giving six teams of six students the opportunity to research, design and make prototype solutions to genuinely tough engineering problems.
The Shiplake teams were competing against teams from Queen Anne's and Reading Girls' School. This year there will be a total of 210 IET Faraday Challenge Days taking place between September 2019 and June 2020 in schools, academic partner universities and partner organisations across the United Kingdom. Representing Team 6 was J Coe, F Teague, A Steel, J Kowal, L Spence and J Lucking and for Team 3 H Johnstone, S Massie, R Goggins, Z Lloyd, H Benton and W Mason.
The day started when Phil the Engineer explained the challenge from Airbus (we will not give away details of this as it will benefit other teams!) and the resources that were available to use during the challenge. The pupils were asked to discuss and plan their initial ideas for their working prototype. They were able to explore the various ‘How to’ help sheets in order to learn how to design and use various STEM components.
After a short working break, the pupils were given a budget and Faraday currency, and told to build and test their prototype. Team 6 designed and built a seat that converts into an operating table for a field hospital and Team 3 built a working cargo bay deployment hatch. The pupils had to adhere to a strict time schedule of building and completing project logs before preparing their final presentation and prototype demonstration.
During their presentation, Phil the Engineer probed them with difficult engineering questions about their choice of design and technical knowledge. He then added up the points from throughout the day and announced the winners: Shiplake College’s Team 3! Keep an eye on how we fare against the rest of the country here.
By participating in the challenge day, all pupils completed their Industrial Cadets Challenger Award and will also be applying for their CREST Discovery Award from the British Science Association.
