STEM Club

A team of students representing Appleton Academy STEM Club have been judged as the winners of the first National STEM Challenge.

 

The winning team of six Year 9 students known as ‘The Chocolatiers’ were Thomas Blackburn, Kimberly Howell, Shona Pearson, Liam Pollard, Crystal Tattersal and Faye Yale. They successfully presented their winning design to judges at The Big Bang Fare in Manchester on Thursday 11^th March 2010. The team triumphed against tough competition from Whitecross Hereford High School.

 

Yvonne Baker, Chief Executive of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Network (STEMNET), the charity that is running the Challenges on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said "We hope the fantastic work these schools have done will encourage more schools and after school STEM clubs to access the resources we have developed for the Challenges and take part. We also hope to uncover some of the budding technologists, engineers and scientists of the future."

 

The STEM Challenge required students to design a National Handball Arena for the 2012 Olympics. The winning design was based around a chocolate orange, the segmental structure of the sphere shaped dome allowed natural light and ventilation into the arena. The team incorporated the use of eco friendly solar panels and also tested out different surfaces for the floor of the Handball court.

 

The judges for the STEM Challenges were the Olympic Delivery Authority’s Colin Naish, who is project managing the London 2012 handball arena, and Stuart Fraser, the architect of the London 2012 handball arena. The judges were extremely impressed by the ability of the pupils to talk to two "strangers in suits from London" and amongst the hubbub of The Big Bang event. The students’ quick thinking and ability to respond to the challenging presentation environment was impressive. Colin Naish added "For us, as judges, it has been a fantastic and enlightening experience".

 

The STEM Club as well as being titled National Champions and putting the Academy well and truly on the map have also won an all expenses paid trip to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland plus a VIP tour of the London 2012 Olympic site.

 

The winning STEM team would like to thank Mrs. Binns, Miss. Kauser, Mr. Senior and Mr. Spencer for their help in the project and also the whole STEM Club for their support and assistance – it was a real team effort.

 

For their next challenge, the STEM Club are working alongside BASF (formally known as CIBA) to create a brand new Hair Gel! The ‘Gel 2 Sell’ project will encourage students to test, make, advertise and present their Hair Gel product to a team of real life Scientists and local hairdressers in a ‘Dragons Den’ style scenario.

 

For more photos of the Big Bang Fare visit our Appleton Academy STEM Club blog at http://appletonstem.blogspot.com/