March 2012 - The Woodroffe School

STEM Club Fire up Their RocketsOn the 6th of March the recently formedSTEM Club (Science, Technology,Engineering and Maths) tested theirwater rockets on Top Pitch. The aimof the session was to learn about thephysics and design of them, so we couldcreate our own version the next time wemet.Product Design Visit to London90 Year 9 students were recentlyjoined by a small group of Year 12s,in a visit to the Science Museum andthe Victoria and Albert Museum inLondon, organised by the ProductDesign Department. The aim of the visitwas to allow the students to immersethemselves in recent technologicalhistory showing them how fashions andmanufacturing processes have affecteddesign and styles of products createdfrom the 20th century to today.The students spent a great deal ofthe day making their way through themechanical and scientific wonders theScience Museum offers. They werefocusing on the inner workings of TVs,radios and other modern devices andhow the design methods have changedwith the needs of the consumer market.As well as the Science Museum, thegroup of students went to the V&A,there they observed architectural designfrom all around the globe, and sometextile styles from ancient Asia. On theway through the V&A the students sawthe reconstruction processes of futuredisplays for the museum. They viewedsome ancient and amazing work; froma reconstruction of Michael Angelo’sDavid to extremely Old Catholic plasterpanelling, all mid restoration.Apart from a few sixth formers gettinglost amongst the aeroplane enginesand controlling 90 students, that wereless than enthused with ancient Asiantapestry, the day went without a hitch.Paddy Maguire, Year 12Aliens Take Over Year 8 ClassOver the past few weeks product designteacher, Mr Harrison, has been teachingus how to use tools such as a vacuumformer. This has helped in the designand manufacture of an “Alien Toy” withtwo LED lights inside.We started out by making the shell ofour Aliens by creating the shape outof hardboard and then placing all thepieces together. Once put together weheated up some plastic and pushed thehardboard shape into the melted plastic.This made our Alien shell.Then we moved onto the circuits. Weused a variety of different components,attaching them to a circuit board witha soldering iron. Once we put all thepieces together and created a stand, ourAlien was complete!George Chantler, Year 8We were shown how the rocketsworked: water was fired from the end(very quickly!) after the pressure wasincreased using a pump. They werethen aimed using Mr Harrison’s guidingmechanism, which should have alsoprotected everyone from getting wet!Unfortunately this wasn’t as effective aswe had hoped! We all went back downto school a lot damper than when wecame up!Ewan Pedder (Year 9)