Mindstorms 2006
Marine Challenge


On Thursday, 29th June, fifty Year 6 students across eight local primary schools spent an active day at Saint Aidan’s discovering how to program robots to perform a variety of maritime themed tasks.
The main hall at Saint Aidan's was transformed into a mysterious undersea world, with monsters of the deep swimming through beds of seaweed; tropical fish, coral reefs, a bright yellow submarine and a scary 10' tall Portuguese Man o' War jellyfish all added to the atmosphere!
With dry ice, special "water" lighting effects, bubble machine and "Jaws" type thrilling music students were transported to another world - and of course, there was Saint Aidan's very own octopus to "meet and greet" the pupils (alias Dominic Hale, a very good sport in Year 8!).  After an introduction to the day by Mrs. Bell it was down to work though...

Challenges for the 10-11 year old pupils ranged from avoiding black smokers, clearing “toxic waste” and navigating deep trenches.  The teams had to complete a series of programming tasks that were relevant to curriculum activities - using touch and light sensors to navigate their way around the undersea world.  Each progressive challenge was slightly harder and the teams rose to the occasion magnificently, with really imaginative programming solutions and dogged determination to complete the tasks.

At various points in the day, a cross-section of pupils and staff from the primary schools had to brave the Portuguese Man o’ War jellyfish (ten foot long with illuminated tentacles) to go and experience working with alternative robots.

Assisted by Mrs. Nisbet, Sara Creer and Annie Braithwaite (two Year 10 students), pupils could play a simple “Simon says” game with Chuck, use a webcam as a motion detector and navigate a robot around a “seascape” to collect paperclips with a magnet.  

But the work didn't stop there...
In addition to all the robotic challenges, each pupil also had an Activity Booklet to complete... this included a series of marine-themed maths questions and a tricky crossword.  Research books for the crossword were available, and this was also an opportunity to display the Mission Booklets submitted by some of the year 6 classes prior to Mindstorms day...
Mr. John Belshire, Head of Fleetwood’s Charity primary who came with his team said the day had been “truly inspirational – it’s wonderful to have another team activity that is so different from the usual sporting challenges; the children certainly learn a lot from these activities and it definitely helps with their transition to secondary school”.

 

Eight primary schools took part;

  • Carter's Charity School, Preesall
  • Fleetwood's Charity School, Preesall
  • St. John's School, Pilling
  • St. William's School, Pilling
  • Stalmine School, Stalmine
  • St. Hilda's School, Carleton
  • Singleton School, Singleton
  • St. Michael's on Wyre School, St. Michael's

The competition was judged by engineers from British Aerospace and all the pupils received a certificate, but there were several additional prizes awarded for:

Overall Winner - St. William's School, Pilling

Team Work - Singleton School

Innovation - St. John's School, Pilling

Mission Booklet - St. Michael's on Wyre School
 
The day was a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating - the children were delightful, they worked extremely hard and were excellent ambassadors for their schools - we look forward to meeting many of them again in September!