newsletter E2

Year 8 Construction Challenge 2016
On Tuesday 8th November 2016, a group of Year 8 students (of which I was one)
travelled to Royal Alexander and Albert school for a maths construction, engineering
and design challenge. The schools taking part in the competiton, each entered two
teams – Fisher entered an X and Y team. We all experienced talks from professional
engineers and then got down to business – making our design.
The aim of the day was to create a bridge, able to hold 1.5kg in weight, as
well as the bridge being a minimum distance of 1.5 metres. To give us a better
understanding of financial awareness, we had to pay for all of the equipment that
we used. This made it harder, as the winner was also decided on the cheapest
bridge created. We used resources, such as nuts and bolts, paper, selotape and
hole punchers.
After a morning of intense work and design, the teams broke for lunch. Pretty
quickly, however, work was back underway. After many hours of deep concentration,
the projects were complete. Presentations of the final bridges created were made
by the groups and this was then followed by the testing of each one, which
involved seeing how much weight each bridge could hold. The bridge created by
the Y side Fisher team, of which I was part, was able to hold 2.5 kg of weight. We
finished in 2nd place – a very acceptable position. Overall, it was an enjoyable day
and I look forward to similar events in the future.
Ryan O’Sullivan 8K
ASPIRING FOR ACADEMIC, CULTURAL & SPORTING EXCELLENCE
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