Science and Engineering Week 2011

Wednesday - The Future of Phones!

On Wednesday the school was very fortunate to welcome Rich Bernardo, the Director of Creativity for Nokia, the massive mobile phone company. Rich spoke to our Year 9s about the history of mobile phones and the direction they might go in the future. We heard how more than three quarters of the world's population now now own a mobile phone!  It's expected that next year 10 trillion text messages will be sent around the world!

Rich showed us a range of concept phones that may be in the shops in a few year's time - phones that stand up on their own when you ring them, completely flat and perfectly clear phones that you blow on to operate and a pair of glasses that show your phone's display which is operated by a movement-sensitive wrist-band!

Many thanks to Rich and everyone that helped at Nokia, it was another great Science & Engineering event.

Tuesday - Monkey Business

On Tuesday, Nikki Waldron, an assistant producer from the BBC who works in the Natural History unit in Bristol, came and spoke to some of our local primary students and our Year 7s. 

Nikki brought camera and sound equipment to demonstrate some of the communications techniques that are used in the TV industry.  The students heard fascinating accounts of how Steve Backshall, presenter on the Deadly 60 TV show, has got into many dangerous situations with the wild animals that they have filmed all over the world.

Nikki told us that the only time Steve has ever ended up in hospital was when he was bitten by an adder, the only poisonous snake in the UK! 

Volunteer students were recruited to perform as director, presenter, cameraman, clapperboard operator and mobile radio operators and then try and get footage of the wild gorilla that was loose in the school hall which fortunately turned out to be a member of staff in a gorilla mask.

The visit was a great success many thanks to Nikki and the BBC.

Click here to see a Deadly 60 video about SPIDERS!

Monday - Dr Lewney and Rock in 11 Dimensions

On Monday we were visited by Dr Mark Lewney who blew our ear with fantastic rock guitar and then blew our minds with an explanation of the world, the universe and everything. 

Using his guitar, two bricks, an inflatable world (not full scale), an air bazooka and a story about 2-dimensional ants living on a piece of graph paper, Dr lewney took us deep into the world of quantum physics and string theory.  He explained how there may be more than the ususal three dimensions in the universe - possibly up to 11 including the dimension of time, and that we are living in an era when after 13.7 billion years (13,700,000,000) scientists may discover what the universe is all about!

So, what's string theory? Find out more here......

Monday - Pi-Day

Pi Day – 14th March 2011

Π = 3.141589...........

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th. In American Date format the day and month are 3/14 which happens to be the first 3 digits of Pi. It is also the birthday of Albert Einstein.

In 2009 The US House of Representatives designated the 14th of March as Pi Day and “It urges schools to take the opportunity to teach their students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics”.

Having learned about Pi Day whilst talking to a US teacher, in Florida, Mr Long thought it would be a nice idea to introduce it to Mangotsfield School!

The Maths teachers kicked the day off by wearing T-shirts with various interpretations of Pi, Πrate and “Who ate all the Pis?” being 2 of them. 

Numerous classes were involved in Pi and circle based activities, some Year 11’s formed the Pi symbol on the playground, circles were drawn on the playground, Mrs Smiths Year 9 and 10 classes planted a circle of flowers with a Pi symbol in the middle, this will look really good when the flowers have had a chance to establish themselves. Many classes also did work on measuring circumferences and diameters of various circular objects, to see how close they could get to Pi.

Pi Day lunchtime was the time for the Pi Day Digits Challenge, where pupils were encouraged to remember the most digits of Pi. We had had 16 participants from years 7, 8, 9 and 10. The winner was Ellie who managed to recite Pi to 150 decimal places, an awesome achievement, for which the prize was £31.42 ......

Next year we will do the same activities as this year and hopefully add a few Pi(e) activities by getting the restaurant to join in.

Many thanks to all the pupils and teachers that got involved.

Rob Long.