Braidhurst High School Robotics Club has once again teamed Diamond Dogs from Airdrie Academy so that they could put on an exhibition match at the North Lanarkshire Learning Festival. The robotics club is committed to delivering Scotland’s STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) future. The club meets on Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes and is supervised by Mr Hussain of the Science department ,the topics covered by the club so far include Logic circuits, robotics and computer software / hardware architecture.

The collection of pictures show pupils from Braidhurst High and from Dalziel High School. One of the club members is pictured delivering a master class to the boys and Girls from Dalziel High school.

In the VEX Competitions, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, teams of students are tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams from around the world in a game-based engineering challenge. Classroom STEM concepts are put to the test on the playing field as students learn lifelong skills in teamwork, leadership, communications, and more. Tournaments are held year-round at the regional, state, and national levels; local champions go on to compete against the best in the world at VEX Worlds each April.

In another picture girls from the Braidhurst High Robotics club were given an opportunity to meet Bridie Gaynor from Innovation First, who are the main supplier of  the VEX Robotics Design System, as used by the club to nurture creative advancement in robotics and the knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and math education (STEM).  Mr Hussain whose wife is a robotics engineer  commented that he is particularly proud of the addition of females into the robotics club for the new challenge as announced by VEX at the World Championships.

Mr Hussain has a background in science and engineering, having worked as a commissioning engineer for some of the most well known companies around the world, such as NASA in the United States and Mitsubishi in Japan. Robotics runs in the family as his wife works for a Scottish company called Touch Bionics (www.touchbionics.com/ ) based in Livingston, “she’s the real expert in the family”, comments Mr Hussain. The company is a real success story that Scotland should be celebrating and has offices in many countries as well as fabrication facilities in the United Sates.

This year’s annual IDL project: Outdoor Classroom, saw some minor changes to an already successful project.  All S1 pupils were given the opportunity to experience activities organised by a range of departments which had a common theme and focus on developing problem solving skills. This year’s activities were: Habitat Sampling (Biology), Bike Tour (French), Orienteering (Maths), Water Sports & Team Challenge (P.E.), Scavenger Hunt (English) and Bridge Building (Technical). The project took place across three days both in school and at Strathclyde Park.

The pupils had an excellent time and thoroughly enjoyed learning and doing new things that they often wouldn’t have the chance to do.

Karla Luxton (1.4) gave her comments about her experience of the project.

“I really, really enjoyed it. It gave me the chance to talk to and work with people in my year who I wouldn’t normally speak to”

The pupils should also be highly commended for the very good standard of behaviour and conduct that was on display throughout the three days.

Braidhurst under 14’s took on St. Andrew’s Secondary on Monday evening at Somervell Park, home of Cambuslang Rangers, in the Scottish Cup Semi-Final. Both teams were cheered on by a sizeable crowd and it wasn’t long before the deadlock was broken, with Braidhurst unfortunately getting off to the worst possible start. A corner failed to be cleared and the ball was fired home from close range, putting St. Andrew’s into a one goal lead. Chances were few and far between, but from another corner – this time for Braidhurst – Adam Kettings looped a header over the keeper to equalise and keep the tie level going into the break. After the restart, Alistair Small won his side a penalty which Mason Kelman converted at the second time of asking, with the St. Andrew’s goalkeeper having made a terrific save. Braidhurst were now firmly in control and put the game beyond doubt when Adam scored his second of the game, rounding the keeper and slotting into an empty net. The game ended 3-1 with Mr Clarke and Mr O’Toole delighted at the outcome and performance from the team. The boys now have a Scottish Cup Final to look forward to against St. Ninian’s High School from Giffnock.

To help launch the school’s very first Literacy Day we welcomed author Keith Gray into the library for a talk with our S1 pupils.  Keith spoke about this own journey from being a self-confessed ‘hater’ of reading to a published, prize-winning author of 21 young adult books.  Pupils thoroughly enjoyed Keith’s talk and asked him many interesting questions.  Later that day a select group of pupils were back in the library for a Literacy quiz which proved very competitive.  All pupils enjoyed the fun questions with the team from 1M the eventual winners.  A big well done to everyone involved.