The celebration day on 16th June was to showcase how well the children had done building their vehicles and how well they understood about the technology in the cars.
Back in February the Primary Engineer training day was held at the Hall. The objective was to give tools and inspiration to primary school teachers to better deliver STEM through building model cars. Seven Freemen and Liverymen took part on the day to mentor the teachers. We would have had 10 mentors and 10 schools but due to the train strike on the day this was unfortunately reduced.
Two types of car were built, one a simple shoe box vehicle for the very young children, 5-7 years and an electric car for the older children. Some of our mentors were able to help advise and support the teachers in class with their designated school, all of which were reasonably local.
The aim was for the children to build their own cars somewhat augmented from the sample cars which the teachers built at the training day. The teachers were able to explain aspects of motion, friction, torque, power design etc. to complement parts of the curriculum.
Martyn Wheatley, Tom Heywood, Jim Webster, Aubrey Dunford, Ollie Bridge and I interviewed the teams looking at the car design, how well it was executed, accuracy of cutting, wiring etc. and how much they had learnt and understood about the technology within their cars. This part was very inspiring as the children were very enthusiastic and mostly very well informed about flow of electrons, friction, momentum and so forth. I am sure I didn’t have any idea about these things at that age!
The cars were then put through their paces and winners awarded. Everyone had great fun and many thanks to the Primary Engineer people who organised and delivered the day, their enthusiasm was infectious.
ONly the following schools were able to attend on the day due to timetable issues, staffing etc.
Schools: Archdeacon, Horniman, Albion
I hope that more Liverymen and Freemen will volunteer to become mentors next year, it really is very rewarding and part of our “giving back” philosophy.
Jane Fishwick