Last week, 3 teams of BMS Students (all of different ages) went to the Bushey Academy to compete in the Rotary Club of Watford Problem Solving Challenge. There were three levels of the challenge: Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced. BMS competed in all three.

All groups had the same task with a few minor changes; build a crane that can move, with the operator at a distance away from it, make it pick up an item with magnets and make it come back. The Foundation task was just that with no limits. However, Intermediate had a height limit of 28cm and Advanced had a height limit of 24cm. While it was difficult to fit the technology into such a height limit, they managed to solve the problem.

In total, we had 4 hours to manufacture the crane and 2 hours to hand in a portfolio with multiple prototype designs for our crane. All of the teams managed to make great progression as the time went on including both the designs and also the crane itself. The competition itself was great fun and we learnt a lot about both teamwork and engineering.

by Darius

Year 7 STEM Leader