News

On Friday the 16th June, 11 students from Year 9 took part in the Better Able STEM day competition at the University of Greenwich, Medway Campus. They were split into pairs and put together with a pair from another Kent school to form a team of 4 to take part in three challenges. During the day they were assessed on how well they performed as well as how they worked as a team with people they had never met before. The three challenges were:

• E-Fit Challenge. Using the same facial recognition software used by 90% of police forces in the UK, they had to create an image of a criminal after witnessing a crime (a teacher stealing a mobile phone).

• Robotics Challenge. Using a lego mindstorm robot, they had to write a program to navigate it through a course, using its infrared and ultrasonic sensors.

• Medical Diagnostics Challenge. The teams worked together to try to diagnose two patients with different medical conditions that appeared in their casualty department. This involved testing “urine” samples, evaluating brain functions and examining x-rays.

Didem Altunok, Megan Barty, Camille Reddy and Marzena Romanczukiewicz were in groups that won prizes for two of the three competitions, with Alice Boyett and Emily Newman’s team winning the overall day and qualifying for the South East regional finals next year.