At the end of last term the Engineering clubs took part in various activities. Firstly they had the House Engineering competition which took place on Wednesday 10th December. Students were asked to look at housing in third world countries and the problems that occur with flooding – often in places like Bangladesh where the structures are so weak a flood can wipe out whole communities in minutes. The students were assigned to produce a model house using basic materials (dowel, modelling clay, corrugated plastic), to withstand a wave of gushing water poured in its direction.
The students quickly took to their designs and after just 35 minutes we had 7 ridged prototype houses ready for testing with a bucket of water – most of which survived, apart from Mr Lawrence who was stood too close to the flood area!
Not only was it great to see the students all contributing to the design, production, and testing of their houses, it was really motivational to see the large uptake the challenge had. There was a fantastic turnout for the event; with 58 students all working together on their designs.
The second achievement to come from Beauchamp’s Engineering Club was the successful trip to Loughborough University on Wednesday 17 December to take part in the First Lego League. The First Lego League is a competition where the students have to use the Lego EV3 (robot Lego that you can program to do basically anything) to complete a range of activities on an assault course. The students were given three attempts to complete the challenges and awarded points according to the tasks difficulty etc. As well as programming and producing a robot can run the assault course, the students also had to go in front of a panel of skilled engineers to explain their design. On top of this they had to give a presentation to a different group of experts about how we can use engineering and electronics to help educate others. The students took every stage in their stride, and put 110% into all the activities.
During the heats Beauchamp College was running fourth and with some last minute alterations on the practice table we had worked out we would gain enough points to get us through to the final. Unfortunately the tweaks to the programming and robot could’ve done with a bit more testing and they couldn’t pull it off during the final run of the course, however the team weren’t disheartened, and although they were out of the competition by that point, the team still continued to make adjustments to the robot because they wanted to prove to themselves on the practice table that they could do it! All their efforts were not to waste, as their design and engineering skills were recognised at the awards ceremony when they won the ‘Best Designed Robot’ trophy (for the second year running)!
The students really came together as a team, not just on the day, but in the run up to the event, putting in extra hours, and sessions with the Lego robot to ensure we could meet all requirements of the tasks to the highest ability. The students obviously got a buzz from the challenge because all the talk on the train back was about improvements we could make, next stages, and how we can develop the program and robot ready for next year’s event!
“The students are a real credit to themselves and the college for the effort and motivation that they all have put in. It’s really positive to see students so willing to get involved in engineering and design, giving up their own time after school, taking plans home to work on etc. I hope we can develop these sorts of activities further and give students more opportunities like this, as it not only benefits the students, but also helps showcase some of the incredible skills and talents we have here at Beauchamp.” Mr Joyce