Bishop Thomas Grant School STEAM Club

Like many of us, STEAM Club (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths) has been pushed to adapt quickly this year, but we are happy to say that the clubs are up and running for Year 8, 9 and 10! After a successful trial last summer, where some fantastic paper bridges (shown above, from Nicola in Year 9) and Rube G machines were made during lockdown, Year 8 STEAM Club will be running remotely. Every fortnight students will be given an engineering challenge: the first week is for designing their solution, then, once the design is submitted to the science department, each student will be given their own starter pack of building materials to take home and build their design in week 2. Students can then send in pictures or videos of their creations to win prizes! Year 8 STEAM club is open to all students in Year 8 and all challenges will be uploaded to Satchel:One.
For Year 9s, our robotics team has started preparation for the annual Tomorrow’s Engineers Robotics Challenge. Last year Bishop Thomas Grant won two trophies at the London regional event, but we are confident this year we can go one better and make it to the national finals. For any Year 9 students not doing robotics, we have the opportunity to complete a national CREST Bronze Award from the British Science Association. Any student in Year 9 interested in gaining this extra qualification should speak to Mr Burke in the science department.
For Year 10, we have a small team embarking on the PA Consulting Raspberry Pi Competition. It’s the first time the school has entered the competition, but with a challenge to program the mini, credit-card sized computers to ‘make the world a better place’ we know our students will have lots of ideas for how to use this tech to help their communities. For any Year 10 students not on the Raspberry Pi team, we have lots of other programming challenges for them to try too.
If you are looking to spice up a dreary Saturday afternoon, with some educational activities to do at home; the school has set up a new webpage for STEAM on the Bishop Thomas Grant School website. Here, you can find lots of links to activities you can try at home.