Highfield Prep Engineer Their Way to Success

Fourteen Year 5 students from Highfield Prep became young engineers for the day on Thursday 12^th September, during their visit to Leighton Park’s Design and Technology Department for our very first workshop of this school year.

Mrs. Bolton, who had visited Leighton Park School last year with her previous Year 5 cohort, returned with her new group of Year 5 pupils keen for them to experience a fun STEAM session where she “hoped they would gain team building and resilience skills”.

Using our purpose-built testing ramp, the students were challenged to design and construct a vehicle made from Lego Technik.

The group was eager to dive into learning about gear ratios and centre of mass as they took on the challenge of making their Lego cars climb the ramp. The session began with the assembly of simple Lego cars by following instructions. Once each pair had built their initial car, the children moved to the classroom to learn how different factors could affect their cars’ ability to travel up the slope.

With the Iterative Design Process in their minds, the students then made adaptations to their car, some of which were very unique! Excitement and competition filled the room as they took turns to test their modified cars against ever increasing gradients. While some cars veered off course and others somersaulted backwards, many teams successfully achieved a very high level. Constance, Year 5 at Highfield Prep, said the best part of the workshop was “working as a team to build the cars” but still wishes they had “made it to the maximum ramp”, which still remains an as-yet-unattained level. Meanwhile, Arianna exclaimed that “it was the best thing ever” and Anayah “had so much fun!”

See more photographs from this workshop in our online gallery.