Year 9 Underwater Engineering Challenge at MOSI

Category: News

On Wednesday 18th May 2022, six budding Y9 physicists travelled to the Science and Industry Museum in Deansgate-Castlefield, Manchester. The Global Underwater Hub had set up a STEM challenge to inspire the next generation of engineers, and seven schools from across Manchester had come to compete in a fierce battle of building, designing, coding and presenting in the regional heats. After being given instructions, the team of six, led by Miss Carolan, set off to work: Olivia and Bella on the construction of the Lego Mind-storm robot (with Olivia as chief engineer!) as Krishna and Sarah worked on designing the beautiful bot, later known as Koral Kleaner. Sara and Ranea studiously coded on an iPad, and managed to complete 2/4 coding tasks, a great achievement which meant that our robot could turn and detect objects due to its three different sensors. After over four hours of tiring work, the project was finally complete, and we had a beautiful design booklet, a robot, a song, a script and a television advert!

The team then took a lunch break, then we were allowed to look around the museum for an hour. We saw some cool experiments, tested our reaction time, and even had time for the gift shop!
Finally, the time came for the big reveal. After all of the teams had presented their ideas and findings, the judges made their decision. Although we were all sad that we didn’t win, and that we don’t get to go to Aberdeen for the national finals, we enjoyed the experience and would love to go again! We are glad that we took part and can’t wait for more incredible opportunities like this one.
Thank you, Miss Carolan!

By Isabella B