On Friday 7 June 2013, Alford Academy hosted another highly innovative STEM Challenge which this time focused on S6 involvement, and linked to the Aberdeenshire initiative, “Be Part of the Picture”.  The Challenge formed a part of the S6 Induction Event coordinated by Mrs S Ogilvie (Acting Depute Headteacher and PT Faculty Modern Languages).

Mrs Jan Holt (PT Faculty Business Education and Computing) designed the event and led a multidisciplinary team from Art and Design (Mr Moffat), Physics (Mrs Booth), Textiles (Mrs Woolley),  Computing Science (Mr Scott), Business Education (Mrs Taylor),  Mathematics (Mr Kerr) and HWB (Mr Cruickshank).  Additional support across these areas was provided by Mr. A Spiers. The Challenge also partnered with The Robert Gordon University School of Computing Science and Digital Media, where Professor P. Holt, Dr. D. Doolan and Mr. J. McGregor led microcontrol and programming workshops.

Pupils were asked to express positive things about Aberdeenshire; people, place and environment around the themes of eFashion, Mobile Visualisation and Parallel Computation.  Activities included designing and making LED bracelets –  clothing with sewn in conductive materials (batteries included!) –  3D Electronic Billboards -constructed from Lego and controlled through Scratch – and iPad array displays.

Workshops were followed by group brainstorming sessions with presentations showing how the technologies could be used to contribute to “Be Part Of The Picture”.  Ideas ranged from putting on an eFashion show with wearables designed around Nature in Aberdeenshire, to using 3D Lego models to capture the sophistication of Energy Technology.  Feedback from pupils and staff was very positive and we look forward to next phase of this initiative.