SATRO Challenge

Earlier this week students took part in the SATRO Problem Solving Challenge, and we are proud to announce that our Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 5 teams won their heats and will progress through to the finals, while our Key Stage 4 team finished in a very respectable second place! 

The Problem Solving Challenge is an annual event which consists of 5 regional heats and a Grand Final.  It has been running for over 20 years and nearly 1000 students take part annually.

Students compete in teams of six in a desktop engineering challenge which lasts for one and half hours, using only the materials and guidance provided in a pack.  Each team is judged on reaching a defined set of goals be that height, length, speed or time.  The challenge is to solve the problem using ingenuity, teamwork and creativity based on STEM skills.

Very well done to all the students who took part and we wish the Key Stage 3 and 5 teams well for the final.

Report by Yr 12 student, Libby

The competition allowed us to work together and to process the problem in a way we wouldn’t in school. Problem solving in a practical way is something that isn’t heavily focused on in the curriculum and the challenge involved objectives like using the least amount of material possible which forced us to think creatively and collaboratively to develop an idea that would work.

All key stages were given the same problem to solve and it was great to see how everyone approached the same issue in different ways as we were all given exactly the same parameters and had to achieve the same goal. 

There was minimal adult intervention which really meant we could try to develop something that we thought would work, whatever that looked like and as we were all facing similar difficulties when we all had to complete the timed task at the end of the activity everyone understood that it was really hard so it was nice to talk to other schools about things and laugh about how our projects didn’t work incredibly well. 

I think it was a great experience and we can now use what we learnt in the next challenge.