Team from Whitworth High named STEM challenge winners

A clever time machine toy to entertain and educate won a team from Whitworth Community High School the North West STEM Challenge title.

Six schools took part in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths final at Fred Longworth High School in Tyldesley.

Now the Whitworth team have to wait to see if they are among the country’s top five schools to get a place in the STEM Challenge final.

The Whitworth team was selected from the Able, Gifted and Talented cohort in Year 8 and at the competition they could select one of three challenges, to make a prototype for: someone who is sporty, someone who is disabled or an educational toy for a child aged three to five.

The team assigned roles including project manager Tabitha Summerscales, electrical engineer Arabella Gregory, safety officer Eva Warsap, designer Finley Foster and, along with Bailey Bergin, Arabella was also the accountant.

James Power, along with Tabitha delivered their presentation to the judges, before other students also explained aspects of the toy.

They had 120 Faradays to ‘spend’ to buy the equipment needed to make the prototype and had to work as a team to build it.

Tabitha said: “I think we did really well working together as a team, we did disagree a few times. At one stage we spent about half an hour trying to work out why the toy wasn’t working thinking it was the battery only to find the LED was broken.”

Keeping an eye on the budget was Bailey who said: “Some people had bought items that we didn’t end up using and we couldn’t return them, but we still had the most money left at the end of the competition.”

James said: “We designed it to be educational and like a time machine so it had cogs and all the wires were hidden underneath in a wagon and we had the date of 60 million years ago on it. Tabitha and Arabella also made pop-up dinosaurs out of foam.”

When judges quizzed them about sustainability, Bailey explained the batteries would be rechargeable and a solar panel could be fixed onto the toy.

When asked how it could evolve, Tabitha said they would add speakers that would give the child information about dinosaurs.

Eva, who as safety officer intervened when the LEDs were running hot, said: “I have learnt that not everything you think of is easy to do but you have to try it out and make a prototype before you come up with a proper design.”

IT teacher Mr Haniff said: “It was a pleasure observing the students as they applied their problem-solving skills and worked collaboratively. On the minibus ride there, they were scattered throughout, but on the return trip, they all sat together.”