Scientists from Imperial College visited Haseltine primary school in Lewisham to run the school’s first ever rocket challenge day.
Pupils in years 5 and 6 were placed into teams and challenged with designing and building a rocket capable of launching an astronaut into space and bring them back safely to Earth. However, the fuel that powered the rockets was water and the astronaut was in fact an egg!
Each team was given a country that they would be representing a re-run of the ‘space race’ and the winning nation would be the country who kept their ‘eggstronaut’ in the air the longest and also managed to keep them in one piece upon landing.
To undertake this mission, each member of a team was given a specific task to undertake, such as mission controller, rocket designer, safety officer and parachute designer, with each task being crucial to the mission. In this way each member of the team played a vital role in the success of the mission; they also learnt a valuable lesson about teamwork.
Throughout the day, pupils were taught and developed their own ideas and understanding about a number of topics, such as gravity, Newton’s laws of motion, materials, forces and air resistance. They then put these ideas into practice in designing and building their rockets.
Once the design and build was completed, rockets were launched in the playground, with an audience of excited spectators looking on. All of the rockets launched successfully, although sadly not all of the ‘eggstronauts’ made it safely back to Earth! The winning nations were China (year 5) and Russia (year 6).
Dr Mark Richards, Director of Outreach at Imperial College London, said:
“I was very impressed with the students, they were really engaged and came up with some interesting rocket designs. I’m sure many will not forget this experience, and perhaps will look at science a bit differently when they encounter it at school as a result.”