The Richmond upon Thames School is relatively new and had only Year 7 and 8 in 2019. The school is very keen on promoting Science in the wider world and has themed weeks for Science Week (10th-19th March 2019). The school is located in a diverse catchment area and has students from all walks of life.
A whole-school visit to the London Body Worlds exhibition is an opportunity for students to engage in science in an out-of-classroom setting. The exhibition is well set up for schools, having several graded syllabus-relevant educational resources which are used to support the learning during the trip.
Richmond Scientific Society has made a donation of £300 towards funding the visit. The cost is £9.50 per student, so we have covered a full class.
The society has now contributed £513 for two Lego Spike Prime kits to add to the school's existing kit. Notes from the school:
The program is called First Lego League Challenge and it's aimed at students aged between 9 and 16 years of age.
The IET run the UK arm of this competition but it's an international affair with schools and groups from all around the world competing within it.
The aim is to build a robot to complete any of the challenges on the board and receive a set number of points for doing so successfully. There were challenges that involved pushing, pulling, lifting and moving that all required different ways in using the same robot and all pre-programmed to complete the challenges.
There was no set route we were required to follow to complete the challenges but there were bonuses available for following the paths set out. Some of these paths, however, didn't suit how our group wanted to solve the challenges so we sacrificed those points for the benefit of completing more challenges.
We took 7 students to the competition in January 2022 and came away with a trophy for our efforts.
Your quick and generous contribution to this activity ensured students had the correct resources and enough time to prepare for the competition and develop a robot that was successful and able to complete the challenges effectively.
The kits that were purchased using the donation from the Richmond Science Society are being used again this year and will continue to be well looked after so they can be used repeatedly for years to come helping to inspire more and more students to explore their interest in robotics and computer science.
The Board
Close-up of the programmed truck on its travels