On Wednesday 22 May, Year 9 students took part in the Lockheed Martin Engineering Challenge.  The challenge is designed to be a fun, educational experience which enriches the curriculum for the students that attend and is a real opportunity to raise pupils’ aspirations and get excited about STEM.

Students had the opportunity to engage in exciting, hands on activities supported by STEMworks, the Royal International Air Tattoo and the RAF charitable trust.

This year’s challenge involved using robotics, electrical circuits and construction skills. Students designed and built a communication tower that could be used to send a message from Mars’, as well as constructing a Lego Mindstorm robot and programming it to move along a path towards a structure. On reaching the structure the robot was required to trigger a circuit, raise a flag and flash a light. The engineering problem required teams to design, make, test, modify an outcome and present their solution to the judges.

Well done to all of those who took part!  The winning team, Group 4  – Arthur, Freddie, Finlay, Harry and Lincoln – go to the finals at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford.

Mrs Hawley, Teacher of Science, commented. “It was a pleasure to see how well you all did yesterday, tackling what looked to me like a very challenging engineering task. You worked brilliantly in your teams and showed a great deal of determination and resilience.  It was very close competition in the end, and you all did so well, but congratulations to Group 4 for winning this RIAT challenge. I think we have some incredible engineers in the making here at The Cotswold School. Well, done everyone”.