Sirius win new competition!
On Monday, as part of National Science and Engineering Week (NSEW), Sirius hosted the inaugural Triple Science Great Egg Race. This competition was set up to encourage girls to take up science at further and higher education and consider careers in the sciences and engineering.
Eight teams attended from six partner schools in the Triple Science network; The Vale (Brigg), Kingswood, John Whitgift (Grimsby), Baysgarth (Barton) and Oasis Academy (Immingham) in addition to Sirius. Each team consisted of about six girls from year 10. The teams were given a selection of robot kits and construction materials and the help of an “expert”. These were engineering apprentices from HETA who were under the instruction of the girls for the duration of the competition. The teams had to build an egg carrying machine to complete a set of challenges, which were allocated different points and penalties depending on the difficulty.
Early on in the competition, Oasis took a huge lead by competing one of the harder challenges and amassing 200 points. As some teams spent valuable time trying to get their machines to go in a straight line for only 10 points, the Sirius team, with Max Clark as coach, saw an opportunity to amass points by attempting the deceptively simple “Croquet” challenge. A few more challenges and they were in the lead! From this position, Sirius stayed ahead of the rest, finishing 1st with only Oasis offering any real challenge.
Although the day was a competition, its real purpose was to encourage girls into science and engineering, and by the end of the day a number had expressed an interest to continue along this path.
Congratulations to Megan Lawlor, Ashley Shipley, Megan Gibson, Holly Stephenson, Eleisha Furniss, Charlotte Holmes and huge thanks to Max Clark for being coach for the day, and financial support from the Triple Science Network and the apprentices from HETA.
