The winners of the STEAM Primary School Competition 2023 have been announced

The overall winners of our STEAM Primary School Competition, which is held in the school’s Dyson Building, have been announced. Congratulations to Hattie, Charlotte and Delilah from Reepham Primary School who have won this year’s trophy, funded by The James Dyson Foundation. Their superb work was scored on success, performance, and design.

11 primary schools took part in the final, including Reepham Primary, Astley Primary School, Sheringham Community Primary School, Tunstead Primary School, St Mary’s Roughton, Aldbrough Primary School, Langham Village School, Wells-next-the-Sea Primary School and St. Peter’s Easton Primary School. The pupils were challenged with navigating three different tasks; building and launching rockets, coding sphero bots to complete a predetermined course in the fastest time possible and building a model space station whilst exploring a ‘real’ space station using VR goggles.

Since February, we have welcomed over 30 local primary schools, including over 610 pupils, to take part in the competition, with pupils leaving ‘excited and inspired’ after enjoying the tasks. Working closely with The James Dyson Foundation, the Dyson Building is now a hub for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) education in Norfolk. This project has enabled a large number of children to work with Gresham’s staff in the Dyson Building, inspiring them to consider STEAM subjects as future careers. It has been a very popular event, one that will also happen next year with the hope that even more schools will take up the offer to come and compete.#

The F24 Greenpower electric car team took part in their first race at the Lotus test track

The F24 Greenpower electric car team (Grace S, Freddie L, Sam H, and Alastair S) travelled to the Lotus test track at Hethel to take part in the team’s first F24 race.

It was a great day, the car performed well initially but had some teething problems with wires being shaken loose and we managed to shred a tyre. However, they finished many laps in the hour thirty race and finished mid table. The team has many ideas on how to develop the car for the next race and had a great time.

The STEAM Outreach Competition 2023 has begun

The STEAM outreach competition 2023 started this week, with Reepham Primary being the first of over 30 Norfolk primary schools attending. The pupils were fantastic and fed back that they were all ‘excited and inspired’.

Congratulations to our VEX Robotics team, who have qualified for the National competition

Our VEX Robotics team secured the top 2 positions at the VEX Robotics Competition that took place in Sunderland on Wednesday 8^th February. The pupils competed with and against 20 registered teams from all over the UK. The action-packed day required high school and sixth form students to execute the 2022-2023 VEX Robotics Competition game, Spin Up presented by the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation.

As regional champion recipients, the team has qualified for the National competition in Telford in March extending their journey as they seek to qualify and compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship in Texas USA.

Georgina B, Chloe-Leila G, Avis F, Gabriella H, Emily M and David K prepared for the tournament by working together to design, build and program a robot using VEX V5, that could quickly and efficiently solve specific challenges that come with playing the 2022-2023 VEX Robotics Competition game, Spin Up.

Each week, they applied what they’ve learned about STEAM in the classroom, to build these semi-autonomous machines. An equally important set of skills is learned through the competition — communication, project management, time management, and teamwork.

Robert Hazelwood, the team’s advisor (STEAM Coordinator) said, “I am extremely proud of this group of students, some have been developing their skills in VEX for over 2 years within the Dyson Building. This achievement is the reward for hours of extra-curricular commitment and vast amounts of resilience and teamwork. To achieve a top 10% position nationally is an achievement in itself. I hope they enjoy the national competition and who knows, we could be travelling to Texas for the World Championship!”

The VEX Robotics Competition team meets every week during GAP’s. The pupils learn about electronics, programming, mechanical systems, animation, 3D CAD, computer-aided machining, web design, and materials fabrication.

Toby has used 3D printing to enhance the Auden Theatre play library

Toby used the Makerspace in the Dyson Building to 3D print some original alphabet dividers for the Auden Theatre’s play library.

Our VEX robotics teams achieved a top 5 place in the regional competition

The VEX Robotics teams have been working hard since September to prepare for the regional competitions for the ‘Spin Up’ challenge this year. They travelled to Colchester and displayed excellent teamwork, problem solving skills and resilience to reach the top 5 position out of 20. They hope to improve further in other upcoming competitions to enable them to attend the National competition in March.

History STEAM Trench Competition 2022 

The standard was incredibly high this year, with many entries making the final short list. Mr Hazelwood judged this year’s entries and came up with an overall top three ranking. Emilie G came in third place for an excellent model with sound effects and Ilana B took second place for an outstanding cross section complete with full annotations and lovely additional details such as Reginald the Rat. Theo H, Will B and Rafe C came first with their life-size trench system construction alongside a film of the trenches and a filmed reconstruction of a trench attack.

Congratulations to all of the winners, who will receive Amazon vouchers as a prize.

STEAM news this half term

The Dyson building has seen even more collaboration between departments at the start of this academic year. Art, Science, Computing and Maths have all joined forces to deliver some spectacular GAP’s STEAM activities. Students have begun many projects including; an interactive conductive paint wall, bath bomb making, satellite tracking systems, VEX and Lego robotics, F24 electric cars, 3D printing, Electronics and the processes of architecture.

The VEX robotic teams are preparing for regional competitions in January for the ‘Spin up’ challenge this year. The Lego robotics teams are preparing their Sumo bots for a robotics competition in Estonia next year.

From January we will welcome over 600 students from 36 Norfolk primary schools, who will take part in the STEAM Outreach Competition that was highly successful last year.

Any questions please email [email protected]