Airville State School
Scoops the Pool!
The children of Year 4/5 and 6/7 at Airville State School
recently took up the challenge of being junior civil and
mechanical engineers. ENGQUEST, an initiative of Engineers
Australia, holds an annual state-wide competition that centres
on the completion of a simulated engineering task. This year,
the middle school challenge was to design an exciting mechanism
that used one or more pulleys, and the upper school children
jumped to the task of producing playground equipment with
certain specifications and required components. The children
had to work in groups, and emulate the roles of real life
engineers, complete with researching client preferences,
building working models, refining and documenting every stage
of the development.
Their classroom teachers Mrs Bugeja,
and Mrs Higginson, voted the task a first rate combination
of science concepts, technology application, research, writing
and mathematical skills. The recent judging of their final
products at the regional level showed that they completed
the project at an award winning level. The Year 4/5 class
won all three categories; winner, runner up, and highly commended.
The Year 6/7 class took winning place with their entry from
group 3. The successful participants are pictured below:
First prize winners in the middle
school competition were The “Dog House” pulley
group who devised a dog house where the pulleys allowed
the dog to let itself out at will. Group members were:
Jo, Annette, and Samantha.
Runners up in middle school were
the “Crane Group” made
up of Nicolas, Brody, and Brody (not
pictured.) The boys designed a stylish crane and a working
pulley to lift its intended loads.
Highly commended in the middle school
group was the “Snoopy
Pulley Group.” Group members, Linda, Isabelle, Madeline,
Kerri-Ann, Jessica and Kelly (not pictured) designed
a cute toy to amuse a young child. In their design, Snoopy’s
head nodded when his tail was moved.
The senior group produced a playground
design that could be used by children of any ages. Their
winning entry was the working model of a rotating swing,
with the accompanying design specifications including all
safety requirements, and an advertisement to sell this to
the general public. Group members were, Emma, Emily, and
Caitlin.
Airville students are constantly immersed in cross curricular
investigation tasks that are reaping great rewards. |
