Rotary supports STEM workshops at Bradon Forest School

STEM workshops at Bradon Forest School for year 7 students

10th October 2023:

The Rotary Club of RWB & District has once again proudly sponsored a hands-on engineering workshop delivered by Bloodhound Education to local year 7 students. This is the third successive year of doing so and on this occasion the benefitting school was Bradon Forest School in Purton.

Bloodhound Education is a charity that brings STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects to life. STEM subjects are key skills for the careers of many young people.

Pam, an experienced trainer from Bloodhound Education, presented an engineering overview to all of the nearly 200 year 7 students. This was followed with two practical sessions for around half of the year group. In small teams the students had fun building an air-powered rocket car. The goal of the challenge was to design and make a model car using K'nex (a construction toy system) to be powered by compressed air and capable of travelling a distance of 10m. The sessions concluded with timed runs to determine an overall winner.

During the process, teams were encouraged to think about what they were doing, test their models (again and again), observe what happened, learn and redesign to improve. These are all skills that real engineers need.

It was evident the students were fully engaged in what they were doing and thoroughly enjoying the experience. It was very interesting watching the different ways that the students chose to construct their cars.

Delivery of the workshops was assisted by Graham, a STEM Ambassador for Bloodhound in addition to assistance from attending Rotary club members.

A summary of the day as recorded by Bradon Forest School can be read by following this link:

https://bradonforest.org.uk/2023/10/17/bloodhound-education-10-10-23/

In this summary, Mr Sturla, Head of Design and Technology at Bradon Forest, commented: 

“Thank you so much to Bloodhound Education for such an engaging day! A huge thanks also to the The Rotary Club of Royal Wootton Bassett & District for funding this excellent educational opportunity. It’s been such an enjoyable experience and has been great to see students working together and challenging themselves!”

Mark Mudd and other attending Rotary club members were delighted with how the students were engaged. "It was a fantastic workshop, enjoyed by everyone and clearly of great value to the students who all embraced the challenge with determination and interest. The quality of the workshop delivery by Bloodhound Education was once again outstanding, and the event was very well organised by the Bradon Forest School.