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Technology Tournament |
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Technology Tournament |
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General
This is an annual event under the auspices of the Rotary International of Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) who set the design task and the materials to be used. A number of local schools and colleges are invited to provide teams for the event where each team comprises four students, who have to use teamwork, planning and communication, to succeed. Students are given a task, to overcome a problem, using limited materials, tools and equipment. Tasks range from Foundation to Advanced, dependent on age
The objectives of the Tournament are:
To encourage the young people taking part to see design and technology as stimulating, attractive and challenging
To give those taking part an opportunity to develop their team building and communication skills whilst solving a design and technology problem.
The 2017 Tournament
The
2017 Technology Tournament was held at the Meridian School, Royston, and a total of
twenty teams from five different schools took part.
Their task:
was
to construct a vehicle to crawl along a pipeline and clear debris from
inside. Equipped with tools, an electric motor and construction materials,
teams needed to conceive, draw and show the principles of the vehicle,
assign team roles and create a working model ready for testing.
As ever, the task produced a variety of solutions, some more successful than others, but win or lose, there were important lessons to be learned by all teams, which included an encouragingly high number of girls. "The objective", said judge David Easthope, "was innovation and elegance - as well as being able to perform the job"!
Congratulations to Foundation winners Freman College 2 and Senior winners Meridian School. Too many people to list individually were involved as judges, stewards and helpers, but grateful thanks to them all and especially to Jim Webb for managing the whole event, to external judges Joe Daintrey, Iain McDerment, and Glen Hunt.
Thanks, also, to our generous sponsors North Herts District Council, NCPI Solutions, Johnson Matthey and the TTP Group.
See all photos of the event here (courtesy of Neil Heywood and Ray Munden)