Junior Technology tournament

This was very successful as children from our local primary schools competed against one another in teams of four pupils

The children are accompanied by members of the teaching staff who are allowed to advise the children during the tournament but not to complete the challenge for them. Any misdemeanours are punished by the teams’ losing points.

The children are challenged to be “engineers and designers” for the day. It is an educational event and designed to stimulate the children’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, the “STEM” subjects.

The winning school is awarded a cup and the 1st, 2nd and third team are all awarded, gold, silver and bronze medals.  All of the children receive a certificate at the end of the day stating their participation in the Technology Event.

The task is set by the Rochester Trust who have compiled these challenges with the support of the Rotary International Educational programme. The challenges for the children then take place in a suitable venue with Members of the Rotary Club organizing the Tournament. 

The entrance to the challenge is free to the schools as all the materials are supplied by the Rotary Club running the event.

The event was held again at Clarendon Primary School in Knapp Rd, Ashford. We were very grateful to both the headmaster Mr Neale who made the Assembly Hall available to us for the day again and his school staff who helped us make the event extremely enjoyable and successful not just for the children taking part but for the Rotary Club Members and our helpers on the day.

We invited all of the eight primary Schools in Ashford and Stanwell to take part and pupils of three schools, St Michael’s, The Church of England School and Clarendon School attended, giving us eight teams of four, a total of thirty two children.

The children had to construct and build a roller coaster buggy which had to be capable of travelling down inclines of various heights and also travelling over certain distances on the flat floor.

The buggy’s had to be designed and built and decorated using various different materials. The children were asked to evaluate the various construction methods and comment on those that were most successful.

The morning was spent in producing the buggy’s and during the children’s lunch time these were marked individually for their ingenuity in interpreting the instructions, the general appearance and durability and decoration of the finished article with points being awarded accordingly.

After lunch the mobility and durability of the designs were tested    resulting in further points being allocated to all of the teams.

We were very fortunate that last year President Gordon had built all the ramps required for the testing of the buggy’s performance.

These being constructed of wood could be re-used. This meant that for this year the Rotary Club had only to provide the various components for the construction and decoration etc of the task.

The winning team was one from the Church of England School, with a team from St Michael’s coming in second place and a team from Clarendon School in third place.

We were very fortunate to have the Mayor Cllr. John Doran and his wife the Mayoress Cllr. Susan Doran attend the school during the afternoon to award all the prizes and the certificates. They were both very interested in the tournament and how the children had approached the challenge. They expressed their opinion that it was gratifying that we had so many girls participating. We hope that girls will possibly in later years look at engineering prospects for a career. These areas are no longer totally male dominated as many women now are more interested in these careers where they can contribute not only their skills but often imagination and innovation to a project.

There is a great deal of work for the Rotarians in planning and organizing the Junior Technology Tournament and the Health and Safety is a little challenging but it is very gratifying and rewarding to see how much it was enjoyed by all of the participants. The way that the children embarked upon the project and their ingenuity in interpreting the instructions and producing such good robust designs was very rewarding. We were all extremely impressed by their enthusiasm and their efforts during the day.