News
The Greater Manchester STEM CENTRE in the News again!
Designing a walking stick with ultra-sonic sensors for visual disability
15/5/2009
Four pupils from St George's RC High School, Walkden formed a new team and entered their design in the German Science on Stage, Innovative Technologies Move Europe IV competition held in May 2009.
Their hard work paid off as they were awarded the first prize in the whole competition. The team were mentored by staff from the GM STEM Centre.
For more details visit the Science on Stage website, and the local paper reported their trip to Germany too.
Building school’s robot for the future
29/11/2007
FOUR school pupils will be creating their own Johnny Five when they represent the country in an international robot building competition.
Sophie Backhouse, Nathan Linney, Emma Bentham and Thomas Hall, all Year 9 pupils at St George’s RC High School, will jet off to Oberhausen, Germany next month.
Nathan Linney, Emma Bentham, Sophie Backhouse and
Thomas Hall, all 13, are jetting off to Germany to represent the
UK in a robot building competition
At the moment the 13-year-olds are working on their designs for a robot which can either crawl, hop or fly. They have been helped out by Rik Whittaker from Salford Setpoint who works with schools and colleges to enhance science and technology.
Once in Germany the pupils from the Walkden school will give a presentation about their robotics project.
They will also have the chance to meet their rival teams from Germany, Hungary, Norway and Bavaria.
Nathan Linney, from Walkden, said: "We’ve been getting ideas together and we’ve come up with a few different designs.
"We had a choice of making it hop, crawl or fly and we’ve done a design for each. We will decide soon which one we are going to build. I’m really excited about going to Germany and I really like building things."
Sophie Backhouse, also from Walkden, added: "I’m really excited about going to Germany because I’ve never been before.
"At the moment I’m not feeling the pressure because we’ve not started building it yet. I’m not nervous about the presentation because we’re going to be meeting lots of new people."
The pupils will start to build their robot when they return from Germany. They will then fly back out there in April for the finals of the competition.
Philip Westcott, head of technology at St George’s, said: "As a school we have been very successful in both local and national competitions but this is the first time we have been asked to attend such a prestigious event abroad.
"The pupils are all looking forward to the trip and hopefully will enjoy the chance to meet pupils from different countries."
http://www.salfordadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/1026451_building_schools_robot_for_the_future
OCTOBER 2007
The long awaited Sainsbury Report on Innovation in Science, Technology and Engineering was published to cooincide with the Comprehensive Spending Review on October 5.
There is a synopsis on the home page of the IChemE.
See www.icheme.org.uk
SUMMER 2007
Positive Signs for Physics, Strong Growth for Maths, Excellent Signs at AS Level
16 August 2007
"The UK needs a pool of well-qualified graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) for the future well-being of the economy.
Delegate on a Science Learning Centre course
For several years, Science Learning Centres and everyone involved in the STEM community have been concerned by the steady decline in the popularity of Physics A Level, and it is heartening to see this decline halted by a modest increase in entries of 0.4%, mirrored by Chemistry, up 0.6%. We are also delighted to see strong growth of nearly 8% in entries for Mathematics – which lays the foundation for so much of STEM study.
However, there is still a lot to be done, and we should not draw strong conclusions from a single year’s statistics. We need to turn the improved popularity of Maths, Physics and Chemistry into sustained growth - there is still a long way to go from this year’s 27,466 Physics entrants to meet the government’s target of 35,000 by 2014. Also, with bioscience becoming so important for the UK’s research and industrial strength, we are concerned at the 0.6% drop in Biology entries this year. But we can be heartened that the growth in numbers at AS level is stronger still this year in Maths and all the sciences, and this augurs well for next year’s A Level numbers.
Science Learning Centres and the other organisations that make up the STEM community will be working hand in hand to build on what has already been done to improve the recruitment and professional development of specialist teachers of science and maths, who are absolutely crucial to inspiring more young people to stick with these subjects. But I have a feeling that with today’s results we have begun to turn the corner."
Professor John Holman
Director, National Science Learning Centre and National STEM Director