Students at Thomas Becket Catholic School, Northampton, UK

Students at Thomas Becket Catholic School have been working with the University of Northampton's School of Science and Technology on the junkbots project.


Kerrie Henton, Vice Principal at Thomas Becket Catholic School said 'We are committed to environmental sustainability at Thomas Becket and any opportunity we can give our students to engage in an exciting learning opportunity that is good for the community is something we couldn't turn down. The students and staff supporting the project have had an excellent time and the robots they produced from rubbish are just superb'

A Student  (14) said 'It's been very good and great fun and it has made me realise aspects about the environment that I never realised before. We have even found ways to save the school money which I am sure the Head will be pleased about'.

Introduction

The School of Science and Technology at the University of Northampton have been working with local schools to create robots made from junk. This is an initiative by the University to introduce environmental sustainability, engineering and computing to students and has been been funded by Northampton Enterprise Limited and east midlands development agency (emda).


This project sets out to engage pupils with a set of activities over four three-hour sessions that provides an insight into STEM subjects. The workshops will be structured in the following way:
(a)Session 1: Introduction to waste management, its impact, recycling and reuse. An introduction to the idea of making robots from rubbish.
(b)Two sessions involving guided exercises.
· Session 2: Involves some problem-solving exercises (approx. ½ hour), then in groups investigate adding ‘junk’ with a new electrical components such as batteries and motors to use vibrations to move the robots.
· Session 3: To apply some of the ideas on problem solving and use of materials developed previously to build a little junk-clearing robot.
· Lego based robots are provided with two light sensors;
· a play area (containing borders and area for the junk to be placed);
The facilitators will help with programming the robots and the instructions to be used.
(c) The final session will involve the students, with the help of the facilitators, demonstrating and presenting their group’s solutions.
a. Each group will present their work to the other groups in a way they feel is most appropriate- with facilitators help if needed.
b. An hour tinkering time before the presentation will be given to solve any last minute problems.
The project aims to provide an opportunity for year 9 or 10 pupils to meet a range of people working or training in STEM subjects; the selection of the facilitators aims to have diverse mix of ethnicity to attempt to dispel stereotypes of scientists and engineers.

Details can be found at the project site including some example exercises.

For further details please contact: Scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk or +44 1604 893028

Recent interest:
http://northamptonenterprise.cgml1.com/NorthantsEntlz/lz.aspx?p1=0520373S871&CC=&p=3&cID=0&cValue=1