POWERING GLOBAL SOLUTIONS

Our Year 7 and 8 Select Entry STEM students have harnessed elastic energy to design and build spring powered cars using everyday materials.

With cars making up a significant portion of our carbon emissions, students were tasked to find an eco-friendly alternative to power cars and redesign cars to function with this new way of power. By using the Design Thinking process students settled on using spring energy to build mousetrap cars out of basic materials such as string, wood, hot glue guns and a mouse trap.

"A key focus in our department is to make students scientifically literate on global issues. To do this we have been integrating global scientific awareness in students' learning and in the Select Entry Program we have done this through the Design Thinking Process," Rajnesh Ram, the Head of Science and STEM said.

Students' designs ranged from big cars to medium sized cars with large back wheels and small front wheels; cars with three wheels and cars shaped like racing cars. To conclude the project students presented engineering reports to their peers detailing their design iterations, their car's use of energy and their research process.

"It has been incredible to see the students work so effectively in their teams, sharing their ideas and exhibiting a high level of emotional intelligence in their feedback to one another," Select Entry Teacher, Iman Balla said. "They also demonstrated beautiful camaraderie and resilience which allowed them to overcome some disheartening failures with creative solutions and support from fellow team members."

Completing the Design Thinking tasks has built students' capacity in critical thinking. This knowledge will serve them well as they prepare to commence work on their next project: building a water filtration system for a refugee camp in Uganda as part of the Water Works Program.

"We need students to know that STEM is more than building objects with icy pole sticks in a classroom. STEM has real world applications. With most universities using this model of building objects that extend beyond the lab and into the real world, undertaking projects like the Water Works project sets our students up for strong futures and opens them to STEM's impact in people's lives," Rajnesh said.