Lavington School D&T have designs on Mardi Gras

The Art & DT Department worked closely with the Wiltshire Scrap Store to provide a creative day for Year 7 students.  The Scrap Store equipped us with all the materials to recycle as Mardi Gras head dresses.  The students showed great ingenuity in turning industries waste into imaginative and colourful carnival costumes.  In addition to the workshops, students collaborated in small groups to create an original food dip suitable for the Mardi Gras theme.

The work focussed on the aims of : students working with an unfamiliar problem, desinging in teams and collaborating to solve problems

Bridge design simulation

Westpoint bridge designer is software that has been written to allow people to enter a competition but you can download and use it for free in schools regardless.

The software allows the user to construct a variety of bridges for a variety of situations, it seems very open ended and easy to get in to.  You quickly get drawn into the software and want to improve your work.

The ‘test’ mode creates short film of your bridge under load and shows where struts are under compression and tension and shows buckling and failure.  Great stuff.

Oh yes .. it’s free

Download

del.icio.us Tags: bridge,simulations,model,free

Well done Sutton Veney – K’Nex competition winners

NATIONAL FINALS FOR KNEX CHALLENGE – 2^ND YEAR RUNNING!

Lawrence Pitman and Anisah Rahman are due to compete in the NATIONAL final of the Knex Challenge after coming 2^nd in the South West Regional final in Yeovil on Wednesday, competing against 7 other schools.

Knex Challenge gets children to use plastic technical construction kit and Lawrence explained what the teams were asked to do:

We had to build an ant warehouse, 35cm or higher 35 cm wide and 50 cm long , with compartments for storing vegetables and stuff. ..We had to build a mechanism to open and lock two doors with something to carry the vegetables from one end of the store to the other

The judges praised Anisah and Lawrence for their entry and commented that they gained more points because the doors locked really well and the cranes reached every part of the barn
we wish the team good luck at the finals at the Imperial War Museum, Cambridge on the 15^th July.  Sutton Veny was second in the finals last year when Ben Lovell and Josh Trimm represented the school for the Knex challenge.  

(Photo’ attached)

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SEMI FINALS FOR LANGUAGE CHALLENGE

Charlie Wilks and Ralph Frostick have reached the semi final stage of this year’s Junior Language Challenge.

This unique competition was set up to give thousands of children across the country a headstart in learning languages.
Experts agree that the more practice we all have at learning a new language – any language at all – the better we become at picking up a new tongue. And the younger, the better.

 

They have spent the past six weeks learning Dutch to gain points towards a target score of 1800 qualifying for the next stage of the competition – now they have received their next disc and face the challenge of learning VIETNAMESE….

The challenge works by children playing games at random – in the chosen language – against a clock- to accrue points towards their scores.

All entrants are given a FREE Learn Dutch CD-ROM worth £25 in return for a £2.50 entry fee that goes entirely to charity.

 

All the funds raised by the JLC are donated to Thare Machi Education (formerly known as the Starfish Initiative). Thare Machi aim to bring basic education to women and children in developing countries who desperately need it, through the use of interactive lessons on hand-held DVD and MP4 players. The £5,000 raised by the 2007 Challenge will buy solar panels and enough of these players for ten schools in Uganda, with each school receiving ten players. Up to five children can use each player at one time. So last year’s JLC raised enough money to educate five hundred children at once!

 

 

A GIFT TO THE RECTOR STOLE THE SHOW!

At Thursday’s collective worship led by our Rector, John Tomlinson, he was delighted to be presented with a new white stole. It was designed and made by the schools Textile Club, led by Mrs. Sealy, Deputy Headteacher. John knew that the children at the club were planning to make him a new stole but was overwhelmed when he saw the end result. The stole design has small woven panels created by the individual children and illuminated with gold thread.

On receiving the gift John told the children that he would always treasure it and was looking forward to having an opportunity to wear it in the very near future.

John explained to the children that Rectors have a range of different coloured stoles, but white stoles were especially important because they are only worn at special times such as Christmas and Easter.

(Photograph attached)

 

 

SUTTON VENY CE PRIMARY SCHOOL INVITED TO CELEBRATORY DINNER AT WHITEHALL

Minster for Education, Jim Knight will be joining a dinner where Christine Folker has been invited to speak at in Whitehall, next week. The celebratory event has been organised by the National College for School Leadership to celebrate the third tranche of National Leaders and Support Schools who were recently selected to join the programme.

Sutton Veny School was selected to become a National Support School in  July of last year and there are now about 180 NLE’s across the country, from primary,

Secondary and special schools. Their role is to provide tailor-made support to suit the needs of each school they work with…not in a patronising way but in a constructive and professional way with each school learning from the other.

 

Building on Techlink Project

Wiltshire schools, joined schools in Bath to pilot an exciting development from the Techlink CADCAM project. Young school designers create Gas powered racing cars to race along a test track.

Click here

Electonics in Schools – Going Further course – February 2008

Wiltshire schools move onward and upwards with their development of electronics and control. In the very capable hands of tutor Torben Steeg, teachers from across Wiltshire have been exploring exciting ways to engage learners.

 

      

 

 

 

 During the course teachers made sustainable, batteryfree USB torches and buggies.

The major of the course focus was the development of learning opportunities for the pupils back in their schools, based on PICXE. The team of teachers ranged from the relatively experienced to the enthusiastic novices who were introducing elctronics into their school for the first time.

The excellent collaboration in the group was a key factor in the success of this training. This was particularly evident when they undertook evaluation tasks of  a range of electronic toy products

Another key success factor is the range of resources provided by the EIS development team thought their website and other related on-line sites: Enroll your school free and access this wealth of resources; http://www.ectinschools.org/enroll.php

Try this link for some excellent electronic product ideas;  http://www.steeg.co.uk/FSblog/

Torben Steeg’s Blog: full of up to date reviews and ideas encompassing  new technologies: http://www.steeg.co.uk/

UK Design Skills Development Plan

Many agencies including the government are revisiting the need to place real and greart value and importance on DESIGN SKILLS. Taking a step back so we can see the bigger picture we might see that many things are acting indepentantely which if brought together might actually begin to solve the problem we have in GB that Design Skills are not just creating pictures and patterns but about real world problem solving, creativity in bringing knowledge and understanding to  to create a better world. Designing skills are essential to an effective economy.

The review of the National Curriculum; recent media ocus on entrepreneurial skills; Govenrment’s aim to enhance designing skills to increse national capability competing in a grobal economy; the exponential rate of change our young persons are living with. These are all factor that provide more than adequate justifiaction for schools in Wiltshire to embrace this challenge.

To see more:

http://www.ukdesignskills.com/

Development in 3D printing

The latest printer from "Objet Geometries" will print mixed material assemblies in one go. I guess that this is like the move from black and white printers to the first colour printers.

Article

Google goes green

The global internet search company have announced that they are to invest "Hundreds of Millions" of dollars into finding cheep and clean sources of energy.

They believe that the goal can be achieved in years and not decades

Guardian Article

Slowly does it

You may have come across a book called "In Praise of Slow" by Carl Honore

The principles can be summarised as:

1.To strive for appropriate excellence in the making process
2. To make objects that enhance the life of the user
3. To know the origins of our materials, ensuring that they respect country; the communities who produced or harvested them and are from sustainable sources
4. To make objects that will last, can be easily repaired when necessary and are made using materials and processes that do not harm the makers, the community or the environment
5. To deal with our co-workers, clients, suppliers and sellers in an ethical and fair manner
6. To foster, utilise and pass on skills that enhance the making process
7. To enjoy and relish the way of slow making

Sounds good to me.

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare"

Craft Robo Cutter

The following video was posted on the blog of a colleague in Bristol, The video may be helpful to show the potential of the craft Robo.

To see the article click here: http://twowhizzy.blogspot.com/