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A fun, motivating and engaging project immersed in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths. The approaches
STEAM Education
P o w e r e d b y
Making an impact across the curriculum
with a controllable vehicle
to learning incorporated vital communication skills, taking thoughtful risks, working collaboratively, persisting in
solving problems and working through a creative project.
Background
Teacher and Director, Mr Andrews Online
David Andrews formed Mr Andrews Online back in 2012 with a vision to deliver better learning experiences for
children using mobile technology. Since 2012 he has worked alongside hundreds of schools and teachers,
delivering classroom experience days for primary school children up and down the country. He has recently
written a ‘Creative Computing Curriculum’ for a leading Academy, as their previous scheme had become stale
and didn’t allow the teachers to exploit cross curricular opportunities. They wanted the scheme to ‘wow the
children and be aspirational’. The innovative Mr Andrews Online Creative Curriculum is now available to all
primary schools.
Communication: Writing and presenting a script to showcase
their car designs to an audience at a car show.
Having taught Controllable Vehicles in similar way for the past
few years, I was looking for complete transformation on how this
project was delivered. Utilising the power of technology was key
and how to incorporate other curriculum subjects that would
further develop pupils’ critical thinking and problem solving
skills.
This project covered
:
• Design & Technology (Engineering): The design and making of
a controllable carScience: Using wires, batteries, motors, pulleys
and a switch to control the car – forwards and backwards.
• Technology/Literacy: Using the mobile technology to support
learning and as a tool to create car video advertisements and
brochures.
• Art & Design: Designing a unique net and logos / brand for
their vehicle.
Maths: Calculating the costs to make the cars using
spreadsheets & formulas.
Independent Learning: Creating a Controllable Vehicle Digital
Guide
A ‘how to build a controllable vehicle’ video guide was created
for the pupils to follow. The purpose of this was to demonstrate
the steps to success – this involved filming each section, adding
a list of equipment required for each step and instructions. The
pupils could pause, rewind and watch the video as many times
as they needed to as they progressed through the project. This
allowed the children to work in a much more independent way
and more importantly at their own pace. When the children were
ready to move onto the next section, there was a list of
equipment that they would need that was available at the front
of the hall. The guide was shared to multiple devices using
Airdrop and accessed by the pupils via the iPad. This guide is
freely available at:
https://vimeo.com/268980744.
Page 20 | Issue 3 | innovatED | Autumn 2019
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