Ian from Junior STEM came to work with Year 6 today, covering several aspects of the Design and Technology curriculum. The children listened well and were enthusiastic about all of the activities.

The children had chance to make four different models over the course of the day and control them via Bluetooth and a tablet. All of the models involved children following instructions, working as a team, designing the look of the model, programming the algorithms to control the model, and debugging when things went wrong! 

We started out the morning by using Lego to create a robot that could rotate on an axle. The children were allowed to use any parts of the Lego kit to make their robot and were challenged to make it tall and wide, as well as being symmetrical.

The children then went on to build an alligator, which used gears and pulleys to make the mouth of the alligator open and close. They also used a motion sensor to control the opening and closing of the mouth.

In the afternoon, the children created a drumming monkey which used a cam system to make the arms go up and down. They also attached a motion sensor which was used to start and stop the movement as well as change the speed of the movement. The children were able to adapt the design of the monkey and create some drums for it to hit!

Finally, the children created a car that used a pulley system to make the wheels turn. They were able to customise what the car looked like once they had got the basic shape built and some even had time for a race.

Have a look at the rest of our photos below: