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Amazing STEAM Farmvention entires!

You may remember that in half term Junior School pupils took part in the Farmvention competition, having lots of fun with drones and polytunnels with their families.

Farmvention is a national competition that encourages pupils to think of innovative ideas to help farmers tackle the problems they encounter caused by climate change.

There are a range of challenges and for half term we chose:

What is the best material for a polytunnel?

What is the best shape for a drone?

The quality of the entries was fabulous, and it was great to see so many videos, drawings, models, photographs and booklets showing the fun that was had by all. It was also fantastic to see the research that went on, the results of the tests that were carried out, the scientific explanations and the STEAM skills in action.

Mrs Farrer will be showing a video montage of all of the winners in Celebration Assembly and those girls will be receiving a special “STEAM” prize. We will then be entering Wimbledon High’s submission to the Farmvention competition later in the year. Here are some photos of some of the amazing entries. We’re looking forward to hearing about (and tasting) some of the crops that grow!

 

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STEAM Farmvention competition

During half term you might like to have some family fun taking part in the national Farmvention competition.

Farmvention is all about coming up with innovative ideas to help farmers tackle the problems they encounter caused by climate change.

There are two challenges:

What is the best material for a polytunnel?

What is the best shape for a drone?

Girls can take part in both activities or just one of them if they would like to enter. The polytunnel activity is ideal for younger girls, and the drone activity is more suitable for older girls, but both have lots of scope for family fun!

Once pupils have carried out their investigation they can film a Flipgrid video (no more than 1 minute) and post it, or email in or bring in photographs, videos, drawings, booklets or labelled diagrams to Mrs Farrer or Mrs Bond.

Maybe you will test polytunnel materials and make a model?

Maybe you will film a slo mo video of your drone shape test and draw a labelled diagram of a drone of the future?

The choice is yours!

More information is available for pupils on Flipgrid. For the drones activity look here, and the polytunnel activity look here. Pupils and parents will also find lots of ideas and tips on the Science Firefly pages.

Have lots of family fun with Farmvention over half term! The closing date to get your entries into Mrs Farrer or Mrs Bond is 6th November. We will then be carrying out other Farmvention activities during the year and sending in all of our work to the national competition. 

 

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Year 6 and the Teen Tech City of Tomorrow

Each Wednesday afternoon all of the junior girls have the opportunity to take part in an extra co-curricular club run by the Wimbledon High School teachers. One of the clubs on offer to year 6 is the Teen Tech City of Tomorrow Club which  is based on a competition open to 8-14 year olds. As part of the competition young people are asked to design a city of tomorrow that will be kinder, safer and smarter, and build a model to explain their ideas. The year 6 girls currently involved in this project have spent some time thinking about problems that exist in our cities, and have been coming up with inventive solutions to solve those problems. They are using recycled materials to construct a models of their ideas and will be showcasing their “Cities of Tomorrow” soon. We have enlisted the help of a civil engineer to give us some feedback on their ideas (virtually via Teams of course). Lexi Mackle, who is currently working on HS2, will be well placed to advise on transport issues, but has also offered to talk to the Teen Tech Club about her career and her suggestions for safer, kinder, smarter cities. Thank you Lexi! The girls are very much looking forward to meeting you.

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Distinctions for our Primary Engineers!

Back in March many of our pupils raced to complete their entries for the Primary Engineer Competition, managing to finish them just before the school closed and moved to Guided Home Learning. The girls really enjoyed interviewing an engineer and coming up with imaginative ideas to answer the question “If You Were an Engineer, What Would You do?”. The standard of their entries was absolutely fantastic and we were delighted to hear that two girls in year 2 gained the prestigious category of Distinction and Distinction Shortlisted. Special congratulations go to Lidia and Freya, both now in 2K. We will be very much looking forward to seeing what all of our engineers in the making turn into reality in 15 or so years time!

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Nancy Rothwell Award

Love biology and art? The Nancy Rothwell competition closes on 31st July and is for 7-18 year olds. Take a look at all of the details here.

Maybe there might be another winner from Wimbledon High?! See above for Leslie Lee’s amazing drawing!

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City of Tomorrow competition for 7-14 year olds

The City of Tomorrow competition is now opening up their award scheme to individual entries from home. It’s a great competition where pupils use their STEAM skills to design cities of tomorrow that are smarter, kinder and safer. Just what is needed right now! Have a look at all of the details here.

 

Good luck!

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Primary Engineer Leaders Award

Over the last two years years 1, 5 and 6 from Wimbledon High School have entered the Primary Engineer Leaders Award (with great success!). We were luckily able to post the entries off for this year for years 1, 5 and 6 just before school closed. Primary Engineer Leaders Award have kindly extended the deadline for this year until 10th September and we would encourage families to have a look at the website where they can register as a family. The award involves meeting an engineer and we were lucky enough to meet a biomedical engineer, two civil engineers and a renewable energy engineer. Obviously as that isn’t now possible Primary Engineer Award has put interviews with engineers online for pupils to watch. There will be weekly challenges and pupils will be supported to invent something new to make people’s lives better safer or more fun. When schools reopen we will be able to send off any entries that pupils have worked on. The details are here. 

Enjoy!

 

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School Robot Competition

If you’re interested in robots you might like to have a go at one of these challenges from the School Robot Competition.

There are 3 age categories:

  • Draw a robot 5-7 years old
  • Write a robot story 7-11 years old
  • Design a robot 8-14 years old

All of the information is available here

Why not have a go?!

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Practical Action Off-Grid! Challenge winners

At the end of the summer term all of year 7 were involved in a cross disciplinary project which really tested their geography and science knowledge as well as their research, teamwork, design and communication skills. The project was set in rural Zimbabwe where few villages have access to mains electricity and the pupils were tasked with designing a way to utilise solar cells to improve lives in Gwanda. There was a particular focus on the UN Global Goal of Zero Hunger and all of the imaginative ideas were submitted to the Practical Action Off-Grid! Challenge. We were delighted to discover that Group 15 had won the competition and their prizes have just arrived! Thanks very much to Practical Action for the brilliant books and vouchers that each girl has won, as well as the TTS equipment received by the school. Congratulations to all of the girls for their fabulous work, and especially to Group 15!

 

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WASP-13b needs a better name!

Take a look here at the current quest to find out a new name for the exoplanet WASP-13b.

Our school community may be very interested to put their ideas forward before October 18th, as each year we have a group of year 12 students that work with scientists from UCL researching exoplanets and their atmospheres in the ORBYTS group – Original Research By Young Twinkle Scientists. Last year we studied WASP-122b finding out a great deal of information about it from transit data, including that it’s atmosphere was similar to that of Jupiter. Though it certainly didn’t have a very snappy name either…

Do send your ideas in to rename WASP-13b – what an opportunity!