QAS takes part in Faraday Challenge!

Faraday Challenge is an annual competition run by The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), where students are presented with real-world STEM challenges. This year, 12 students in the 4s (year 8) were joined by students from John Mason School in Abingdon and Langtree School in Woodcote.

As they embarked on a day in which they are required to design a prototype, decided by this years sponsor, students showed great enthusiasm. Students work in their groups with little input from teachers or the organisers. It is up to the teams to decide their roles, what they will build, the resources they require from the 'shop'; students are given fake money to buy their resources, meaning they are required to keep to a budget and then finally they create their prototype. 

Head of Mathematics, Mr Bottomley said "It's a really exciting event for the students who take part and it's great to see the interaction between the teams, along with some healthy competition between schools. We're grateful to Paul from IET for coming in and running it, he ensures that the students do all the thinking! The challenge really benefits the students, they use skills they may have already explored in the classroom but they're using them in to solve real-world problems". Phil from IET added "the students at first may be slightly unsure and will often ask for approval, but after a while they begin the work really well independently and don't require as much support. It's great to see them working in their teams so well".