Students Successes: Technology Competition

'Advanced Level' Rotary Technology Tournament 2008

Report by Johnathan Varley

As part of our Design Technology course at A-level Johnathan Varley, James Clarke, Soltra Mbye and Antonia Gatewood from year 12 were selected to represent the school for the Advanced Level Rotary Technology Tournament 2008 at the John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds. Although our team represented the school at Advanced level, Intermediate level was represented by Year 10 students Joe Atkinson, James Wallis, Carla Gregg and Laura Abram. And Basic level was undertaken by Year 9 students Alex Parrish, Alice Wenbourn, Dylan Parr and Jess Pool. The accompanying teachers were Mr Allison and Mr Cave.

                                                                                                          Sixth Form Team

The tournament commenced at 9.00am when we were introduced to the event and given our task. The scale of the challenge facing us quickly became apparent. Our objective was to construct a bridge over an imaginary river. Although this task sounds relatively easy, the bridge had to incorporate a automated mechanism which allowed the bridge to raise for tall ships to pass underneath. The bridge also had to support a one kilogram 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        Intermediate Team                                                                           Basic Team

                                                             Intermediate Structure

weight and be designed and built using only the basic materials provided. Typically paper based products such as paper, card and straws although we were allowed luxuries such as black thread and wood glue. The design from start to finish also had to be accompanied by a portfolio detailing design ideas and justification for chosen designs as well as basic physics principles.

Our team of four was focused from the beginning. Each person was on task and communication was excellent. Our strongest point was definitely choosing our strong points and working to them. For example Antonia completed the bulk of the portfolio; James produced a range of design ideas and ways to overcome problems. Whilst Soltra and I began to construct our final successful design.

By the middle of the afternoon our structure was finished and heavily tested. Our team seemed to be attracting a lot of media attention for example representatives from Radio Leeds and the Lord Mayor of Leeds both had promising words to express about our design.

Finally we had to officially demonstrate our design in front of the Judges. This was particularly nerve racking for all of the team as we really wanted our hard work to pay off. Our testing was going to the number until our mechanism became slightly lodged on the road raising test. At this point we were gutted, thinking we would have lost the challenge for this fatal flaw, which had only happened once and at the totally wrong time. We left for School doubting we had won but reflecting positively on the day. The real good news came when we returned to school and found out that in fact we had won!

                                                                                                                                  Sixth Form Struture 

I would personally like to commend all members of the teams for their efforts and the construction of three excellent pieces of engineering. This truly was a triumphant day for the team members and the school.