Tuesday 15 September 2015

Robotics rules!

We've started up some more robotics sessions with the Year 6 and 7 classes.
The boys have been working with partners and have either been learning how to programme the lego mindstorms robot, or build on from what they already know.  It's been great to see so many of them instantly get stuck into the challenges and start to do their problem solving independently.


We've also had the opportunity to have a play with Sphero - a simple app controlled robot that you can send on missions and just have fun with.  Apologies to parents who have had their son come home asking for a sphero, Ollie or BB8!







Hutt Science Centre Rockets!

What a fun week we have had!
Our school has joined the Hutt Science Centre, a Lower Hutt City Council funded initiative that provides a science teacher to support schools as well as access to many wonderful kits.  Each kit is based around a theme and it comes with a few activities all ready set up including student sheets and teacher notes.
This week we have the Rockets kit and a few classes got to try out different kinds of rockets, as well as the science club who got to have some fun one lunch time.

We first tried out the film cannister rockets.  Students had to work carefully and systematically so that we could find the optimal amount of water and alka seltzer tablet.

Preparing for launch



Waiting for blast off





Then the science club spent a rather cold and windy lunch time investigating air pressure rockets.  We added an extra challenge which kept them going for quite some time - anyone who was able to catch a rocket won a chocolate fish!




EPro8 Technology Challenge

After putting all of the Year 7 and 8 students through a few different technology challenges, we got down to two teams of four to represent Wellesley at a new hands-on, inter-school challenge.

The first heat was held at Wainuiomata Intermediate and the boys got their first exposure to some unique, 3D printed equipment.  Over three hours, the boys had to choose different challenges to complete.  Each challenge had different levels of difficulty, the more difficult the task, the more points.  It was great to see the students working really well together.  It didn't really matter about past knowledge, working as a team was what really mattered.





Some of the tasks included building a moving vehicle, a weighing machine and a swing.  Then each task had different challenges associated with it.


Congratulations to both teams who worked really hard for the two and a half hours.


The team below successfully made it through to the next semi-final.