News from the Practical Inquiry Room

From Mr Joshua Botto

In preparation for Year 6’s next unit of inquiry, How the world works, ‘Innovation responds to the needs of people’, as well as their upcoming da Vinci Day in Term 2, a select group of boys in Year 6 took part in an engineering challenge. With the assistance of Year 10 Science students from our Senior School, boys were given 50 minutes to design and construct a landing craft that protects an egg from cracking when dropped from a height of 1 metre. The students were only supplied with minimal materials to try and evoke ‘outside of the box’ thinking and inspire some innovative ideas. Using parts of the design thinking process, the group ideated, prototyped and tested their designs to see if they could succeed at protecting their egg. The Year 10 boys mentored them through the steps of producing multiple sketches for different ideas before the production of their best design. It was great to see the Year 10s and Year 6s working diligently together, with some successful designs and many cracked eggs!

Overall, the morning was beneficial for both sets of students and there was lots of fun and laughter along the way. We hope to invite the Year 10 boys back later in the year, to further mentor and assist the Junior School students in their scientific exploration and discovery.

Thank you to our Senior School students: Benjamin Pelly, Sam Juod, Louis Mak, Henry Lee, Anastsios Mihailou, Alan Mai.