With first versions of cars built and quite some excitement while racing them over and over and over again the students are now going through the process of where to next and even better if……
They seem ready to delve deeper into some of the science, technology, engineering and maths elements that are associated with the Nerdy Derby. In order to further their knowledge and skills it’s time to hold some teacher run workshops before the next version of their cars evolves. As a team of teachers we have decided to hold a series of four workshops, each one focussing on a different element of STEM.
S- the science behind force and friction
T- the technology behind timing and measuring the speed and acceleration, the addition of an electric motor
E- the engineering behind the weight distribution and choice of materials
M- the maths that is associated with measuring acceleration, speed and the ratio of wheel size
Each workshop will run for two hours starting with defining the intention of the workshop, the success criteria, knowledge of each area of STEM associated with our curiosity and a hands on experimental time.
Included below is a link to one of the slide decks for the science element of the workshops. Remember this is only one of the workshops that the students will attend.
Our intention is to lift the level of knowledge that the children bring to the task of their new prototypes, to demonstrate and use the science skills of questioning and predicting, planning and conducting, analysing and evaluating and communicating.
It will be interesting to see how the students prototypes change and how they apply their scientific, technology, engineering and maths skills further in the Nerdy Derby. I know I can’t wait!