To University and back, in a spacecraft

The Faculty of Science and Engineering welcomed four Wolverhampton schools to the university’s campus for the final of the Space Model Competition in association with RAF Cosford.

The event took place on Thursday, 18 June in the Outreach Lab of the Rosalind Franklin Building at City Campus.

The schools in attendance ranged from years 8-9 and were from Tettenhall College, Smestow School, Highfields School and Colton Hills Community School.

The competition began in March were participating schools were given a brief to design and create a model of a spacecraft that could travel to and from space.

Entries submitted to the university were then narrowed down to the final four schools who were invited to attend Thursday’s event.

Representatives from RAF Cosford included Assistant Director Paul Pomfret, Education Manager Philip Clayton. Education Assistant Lisa Fawcett as well as Carole Grant from the British Science Association who were all invited as the judging panel of experts to view the final four entries.

The four entrants were then awarded by the University of Wolverhampton’s Vice Chancellor Professor Layer.

Vice Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, Professor Geoff Layer, said: “Thank you to all of the staff and pupils for engaging and participating with this event, you have all worked so hard to make this event a success.

“It has been a pleasure to welcome all of the staff and pupils to our new state-of the art Rosalind Franklin Building where we look forward to welcoming more outreach events.

“Our vision is to enable more innovative projects and events such as these to happen so that they can create development opportunities for young people.”

Principal Lecturer and development Business Manager, Paul Hampton, said:” “These competitions have been specifically designed to provide Schools and Academies with an exciting learning experience whilst raising the profile of their institutions at a regional and national level.

“I have been delighted by the dedication, enthusiasm and eye for detail that the school pupils have demonstrated,

“All of the constructed models have considered the aeronautical designs for their craft.

“The student presentations were perfect and to see the end results achieved by the groups in such a short space of time has been fantastic.

An overall winner was decided by the panel followed by the remaining three schools awarded prizes and highly commended for their efforts.

Tettenhall College was announced as the overall competition winner with Smestow College, Highfields College and Colton Hills highly commended and awarded symbolic prizes for their efforts.

The winning school was given passes for the National Space Centre in Leicester.

Chemistry Teacher at Tettenhall College, Robert Ellmore, said: “This was a fantastically well organised event; the pupils got a great sense of achievement from planning to presenting their design.

“We are really proud of the winning team here at Tettenhall College, who were praised for the level of technical detail and research in their design. They really enjoyed presenting their concept to the experts.”

Cheryl Bristow, STEM Coordinator from Highfields School, said: “The students have really taken a lot from the Space Race initiative. They have gained many new skills working as a team which has made the event fun and a great learning experience. 

“We look forward to having the opportunity to participate again next year.”

Ends