Friday 10 June and Year 8 JAGS girls are locked into a mission to design and construct a communications tower to carry a satellite dish, a 1.5 m tower that will hold a 2kg mass at its highest point. Put half a year group at a time into the Holst Hall, supply paper, scissors, a hole punch, masking tape and nuts and bolts and what do you get? (Apart from many decibels of excitement). John Grover who led the Smallpeice STEM workshop (to promote careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) concluded: “Uniformly , excellent team work and very compatible, workable ideas.”

Clearly drawing on observations in their subject lessons, the Year 8 teams learnt to identify solutions, define precise roles for each individual, and to think laterally when things go wrong. As one of the winners, Team Bieber (Hattie S, Hettie F, Laura S, Izzy N and Frances W) explained , “The design kind of evolved, and we worked well as a production team.” Emma C, Abigail, Hattie B, Georgie and Grace realised that rolling the paper at speed to make the struts was of the essence. Their square-based tower worked well to hold 4kg and was a mere snip at £368, costed out.
No matter if the towers sank gracefully under the weight or bravely stood the test, there were many novel approaches and potential women engineers by the end of the day.

Photos 

11 June 2011