By Matt Scorer
A group of Year Nine students from Hope Valley College recently won a Derbyshire engineering competition.
The competition was run by the University of Sheffield and held at Highfields School in Matlock. Students were required to design and build a replica Olympic stadium to a scale of 1-100 from paper tubes. Five schools took part with Hope Valley College finishing in first place.Head of Construction Martin Streets said: "The task tested students design, construction and teamwork skills and I was delighted with what our students produced. All of the schools produced really good work but ours definitely just edged the rest. The only disappointment of the day was that we weren't able to bring it home with us!"
The teams of ten had only an afternoon to design and build the stadium meaning that strong team work was essential. The only materials available to the students were paper, drawing pins and wood sticks to help role the paper into tubes. Each team was also required to give a presentation about the project to the other teams.
Mr. Streets added: "The competition was an excellent way for the students to apply their engineering and technology students to a situation they may really face in the world of work one day. They were a credit to the College and all worked exceptionally hard which was reflected in their achievements."
Each student received a £10 HMV voucher as a prize and Principal Bernie Hunter was delighted with the student's success. He said: "I was delighted for the students that they won the competition. From what I am told they all worked really hard and as a team to produce what was a fantastic model of an Olympic stadium - it was a pity it was too large to transport back! Activities like this are prime examples of applied learning where students take their skills and are challenged to apply them to real life situations. I'd like to congratulate the team and thank Mr. Streets for managing the team."
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
