STEM@Kettlefields
June 29th 2017
We have now had our first session with our new Lego Mindstorms, and I’ve been joined by Dave White – a fellow geophysicist from way back, who is now well into the philosophy of our club. Both Dave and I are well used to programming and computers but the Lego Mindstorms have been a bit of a puzzle to us as we struggle to adapt from a lifetime of text based programming to the ‘drag and drop’ graphic programming of the Mindstorms. I’m sure its not as difficult for the children as they will pick it up without having to translate from some ingrained way of doing things. One way and another we have put together a number of robotic inventions based on our theme of ‘Pets’. I hope you’ll see some new posts on this site shortly as we wind up the session for the summer holidays with a show to parents and sponsors next month.
The STEM club at Kettlefields continues to go from strength to strength, and is fulfilling our hopes in terms of the fun we all have, and the horizons it is opening for members. It has given us confidence to be a bit more adventurous, so we are getting several sets of Lego Mindstorms Robotics systems to increase the range of tools that the club has available to solve technical problems. The governors and the school have shown their faith in us by lending us the money to buy a total of 4 systems (a total of £1200) which we hope to repay through an appeal to local and regional businesses and other organisations, so the children are currently writing to potential sponsors to tell them what we are doing and ask for their support in terms of a donation, but perhaps more importantly through continued involvement with the school and club. If we manage to repay the school, we have a few other items that we would like to buy, including getting a purpose built storage trolley to keep the equipment safe and allow it to be put away safely. As part of our campaign we have ‘branded ourselves STEM@Kettlefields and you can email us at (more or less) that address – stem@kettlefields.club
Tim Owen
8 Feb 2016