Yesterday the Fourths took part in our Model Rocket Car Day. This is a team building and STEM event where the girls are challenged to build a foam rocket car to be launched along a specially designed track. The day started with a session on the ideas of aerodynamics and how rocket motors work. The girls then worked until morning break in pairs to come up with a design for their car. On returning from break the girls had to turn their designs into actual cars using modelling foam and hot wire cutters. After the lunch break the girls were challenged to code a Micro:bit into a stopwatch, talked about the Maths they might use to analyse the data and set up an Excel spreadsheet to work out the speeds.
Unfortunately, the weather prevented the actual launch using model rocket motors, so the cars were raced using an air launcher. The top speed achieved this year was 9.5mph, we will find time a little later in the year for the cars to be launched using the model rocket motors. The girls worked hard throughout the day and all of them engaged well with every one of the activities and left us very excited to see the cars later in the year.