#STEMRen
Our Primary 7 Young STEM Leaders were delighted to judge our Bishopton Primary ‘Sustainable Car’ home learning competition.
STEM can also promote skills for learning, life and work and our Young STEM Leaders have thoroughly embraced the opportunity to create their own innovative STEM challenges.
At the end of 2021, and to highlight the importance of sustainability in technologies, our Leaders set a challenge for families to create their own sustainable car – which was to be created using everyday household items. They were blown away by the quality of the entries, and marvelled at the different styles of vehicles created, as well as by the type of items used. Several of the cars were able to move, and our Young Leaders were encouraged and delighted to find that families at home were using some technological ideas that they had considered themselves when setting the challenge.
Please see below for the entries, and for a few comments from our Young STEM judges:
Car Number 1:
I love this one, it looks so difficult to make. They have obviously put a lot of time and effort in to make it look just like a car you might see on the road. It is a good beginning STEM project that you could keep working on.
It’s big enough for someone to fit inside, so they obviously thought about space and how to make it big enough for that.
I like that it’s made of cardboard – it’s easy to get cardboard, so other people could make this one as well if they wanted to.
Car Number 2:
Wow! Someone has used one of the ideas we thought of in STEM Club! It just shows that if you spend time on an idea and have the vision you can make it work. It was nice to see this idea come to life.
I like that a balloon has been used to make this car move because it measures the speed correctly. It there was no balloon, it would probably just crash into the door. The person has obviously really thought through how to make sure it moves fast and it is balanced, so goes straight.
This car makes me look forward to learning more about woodwork because I’d like to learn how to cut the wood and make it balance like that.
Car Number 3:
This car is very creative and fits the fact that it should be made of reusable things – the water bottle body and the bottle cap wheels mean that you could build this easily at home by yourself and keep working on it until it moved the way you wanted.
This one looks like a sailing boat and I am really impressed that the paper is acting like a sail and the fan is acting like the wind, pushing it along. It’s also made really well as it moves along at a constant speed.
Car Number 4:
I like the fact this car is made from reusable material that they have balanced up – the toothpicks are a great way to balance the wheels on the bottle!
I think that because of how the wheels and the toothpicks are setup, this car is probably going to move and move quite straight. It looks equal on both sides.
Anyone could build this car from these materials and though the wheels and things might be different, friends could each build one and have a speed competition!
Car Number 5:
This design is different in the way that it has a ramp; it reminds me of a skatepark and then you get faster by going down because you build up speed. The fact that the balloon released the air slowly made it the perfect speed.
The speed of this one is not too slow, but also not too fast – it’s a constant like a car on the road. The vehicle is moving quickly and I think this one could go quite far without the force of pushing it.
I like that you could make your own version from things like cereal boxes and you could recycle birthday balloons.
Well done to everyone that entered the competition – the entries were fantastic, and the effort superb. Each entrant will receive 50 points for their house as a reward.
Congratulations to all of our entrants – Young STEM leaders of the future!
