Fantastic news from The Physiological Society’s Mission to Mars competition

Just before the summer term ended the then year 2s had a fabulous session about space exploration and the difficulties that human bodies might encounter on Mars. Mrs Garczynski and Dr Seeta ran a fabulous session for the girls where they found out about the potential problems on Mars, thought creatively about ways to solve those problems and designed space suits to help cope with the demands. The girls came up with some really good ideas and their space suit designs looked terrific.

On Saturday Arabella and Lucia, and their families, were invited to attend The Physiological Society’s annual President’s Lecture, held at the Royal Institution. They had an amazing time taking part in a range of hands on activities as well as listening to a talk given by former NASA astronaut and physiologist James Pawelczyk all about the human limits of space exploration. Both of the girls had been shortlisted in the 5-7 age range of the competition and Arabella’s design was chosen as the overall winner. Very many congratulations go to Arabella and to Lucia. Also very many congratulations to Ewan who was also shortlisted in the 5-7 age category and attends Burlington Infants School which is one of the schools we have been working with in our Primary Science Quality Mark hub this year. What a wonderful opportunity to spend the afternoon with an astronaut!

Great successes in Engineer Leaders Award 2019!

The Engineer Leaders Award is a fantastic scheme run in both primary and secondary schools across the country. It asks the question

If you were an engineer, what would you do?

and pupils are encouraged to think of innovative ways to solve problems in daily life. Part of the award involves meeting a visiting engineer. This year we carried out the award with all pupils in years 1, 5 and 6 and were lucky enough to meet Eleanor Mackle, a biomedical engineer from UCL and Robert Rayner a robotic engineer from Kingston University. The inventions that they girls came up with are fantastic. They drew pictures, wrote letters explaining their ideas, and carried out lots of research.

We were absolutely delighted that we have a trophy winner in each of the age categories and many girls received judges commendations and distinctions. When the certificates arrive these will be awarded in assembly. In the meantime our three very excited trophy winners will be going to an award ceremony at Kingston University. This is an amazing achievement as many thousands of entries were received from pupils all around the country. A very special well done to Ren, Beatrice and Keira. All of the entries will be on display in school on 28th June.

Ultimate STEM Challenge Success!

In May a team of year 8 girls were invited to the Science Museum to attend the final of the Ultimate STEM Challenge to show and celebrate the project they had been working on during the year. They displayed their “Teapods” innovation to the judges and were quizzed on their research, investigations and suggestions for improvements. The team had a fantastic day meeting students from other schools, talking to the judges, looking around the Science Museum and even receiving fantastic goody bags! Congratulations on such a fabulous project! More information about the Ultimate STEM Challenge can be found here.

TeenTech Award winners!

We were delighted to find out that four Wimbledon High teams were chosen  to attend the prestigious national TeenTech finals on 24th June. The event took place at the Institute for Engineering and Technology at Savoy Place in London, and our teams impressed the judges by explaining all of their innovative ideas to them. Aerotrans, Pen for the Blind, Stress-Less Desk and the Passenger Organisation Device were all carefully researched, and the prototypes have been thought through with the help from mentors at Thames Link, Kingston University and UCEM. On the day the VIP judges spent a great deal of time discussing the innovations with the teams and there was also an opportunity to meet lots of other pupils, hear about their ideas and also to meet Maggie Philbin!

When the winners were announced we were absolutely thrilled to discover that Team Aerotrans were winners in the Transport category. This was especially impressive as they were a year 7 team competing in the 11-16 age category. In the Spring term they will be going to Buckingham Palace to receive their award. Look out for Aerotrans – it may well be the way you will be travelling in the future!

 

Year 12 EES team triumphs!

We are very proud of  our Year 12 Engineering Education Scheme team who went to the ICBT STEM Festival at the BP Headquarters in Sunbury. They explained to the judges their design for an urban park structure, and all of the engineering considerations that they had made. They were delighted to be awarded  the “Contribution to Business Award 2019”. Huge thanks to their mentors at Ramboll and to Saranya for all the support, and to BP for hosting the event. It was all fantastic practice for our future engineers!

 

IET Faraday Challenge Day in the Junior School

We were very excited to run a Primary IET Faraday Challenge Day this week for teams from 6 different primary schools including Wimbledon High. We welcomed teams of 6 girls from Corpus Christi Catholic Primary, West Wimbledon Primary, The Study Prep, Wimbledon Chase Primary and Coombe Hill Juniors. The engineering challenge involved designing and making a prototype lighthouse keeper transfer system, and presenting their product to the other groups at the end of the day. Each team worked together to plan their initial ideas, develop their final idea, and then make, test and improve what they designed. The teams were all fantastic, demonstrating a great deal of creativity, imagination, scientific knowledge and resilience, in what was a rather demanding task! The teachers’ team also worked very hard and were very competitive!

At the end of the day, all of the schools were complimented on the standard of their work. Coombe Hill Juniors won the prize for innovation with their ambitious motorised pulley system. West Wimbledon had a fantastic winder device and Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School were full of creative ideas and worked incredibly well together, with their impressive project manager, Cami at the helm. Well done to all our future engineers!

 

#700STEMChallenge Winners

Congratulations to everyone that took part in Sydenham High’s #700STEMChallenge. There were four winners from Wimbledon High! Many congratulations go to

Lara for ‘Wind Turbine rap’

Elena for ‘Journey of the number zero’

Julia for ‘The Periodic Table’

Samah for ‘Has the film industry accurately portrayed space?’

Read more about the competition here.

First LEGO League Junior Expo at LEGO HQ!

Our team of enthusiastic year 4 pupils visited the LEGO Corporate Headquarters this week to take part in the First LEGO League Junior Expo “Mission Moon”. For the last few months they have been designing and building a moon base using LEGO WeDo 2.0; exploring, creating and testing and then sharing their ideas. Their moon base included a gym, a science lab, a store room, a rocket delivering supplies, an ice smasher, an ice transporter and a moon buggy. They had to research a great deal of information about the Moon, before deciding on their final design and work as a team to make all the elements. Then it was off to LEGO HQ (which was very exciting indeed!) to show our work. We got to tour the building, play with LEGO and meet LEGO engineers. It was fantastic! There was LEGO at every turn. The team did brilliantly and won medals in the Innovation and Construction category. Well done everyone!

How can satellites improve life on Earth? SatelLife 2019 Competition

On Monday the SatelLife 2019 competition was launched with the help of year 13, Viv and Greta from year 6, and Mrs Farrer as part of International Women and Girls in Science day. The UK Space Agency is offering young people expert advice and a share of a £50,000 prize for their ideas in answer to the question

How could satellites improve life on Earth?

The closing date for the competition is 3rd March and all the details of how to enter are here.

Remember to utilise satellite data from one of the websites recommended and present your ideas in  a report (no more than 2000 words), a video clip (no more than 5 minutes), or some other way.

Good luck!