Sleaford Kesteven

The Rotary Club of Sleaford Kesteven has held its annual Technology Tournament which is open to senior schools in Sleaford. It gives the students the opportunity to put their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills into practice. This year's Tournament was kindly hosted by the Kesteven and Sleaford High School (KSHS).

The task for both Year 9 and 11 groups was to design and make a gripping device so that a ‘Radioactive Meteorite’ could be safely handled from a distance.  The meteorite - a tennis ball - was positioned in an open fronted box for the Year 9 teams whilst the Year 11 box had a front opening of 125 x 85 mm.  The gripping device must pass through the front opening to grip and retrieve the meteorite from a distance of 1,500mm and placed centrally on a target area.  The task was to be completed in under 30 seconds.

All the teams were given a range of materials to work with and the morning was spent considering possible solutions, planning the team management, detailed design of the final solution and producing a portfolio of ideas before construction was started.  Two test rigs were available throughout the day for teams to test their developing solution. 

By mid-afternoon all the teams were preparing for the final test in front o four independent Judges.  Two judges were engineers from the Grunwald company working with two Rotarians. 

This year we had 21 teams and 84 students entered from the four Sleaford secondary schools:  Carre's Grammar School entered 1 Year 9 team and 1 Year 11 team.  KSHS entered 4 Year. 9 teams and 4 Year 11 teams.  St George's Sleaford entered 4 Year 9 teams and 4 Year 11 teams.  St George's Ruskington entered 2 Year 9 teams and 1 Year 11 team.

The result was very close with only a few points separating some teams, with the Judges awarded the Year 9 trophy to Kesteven & Sleaford High School and the Year 11 trophy also to Kesteven & Sleaford High School. 

Below President Keith Austen presens the trophies and winners vouchers to the team members.