Sphere Science provided practical activities at the Nugen’s Bright Sparks energy event on 29 September in Cumbria.
About 120 Y11 students from local schools took part in our practical challenges.
We ran six quick challenges:
· design a wind turbine power
· build the tallest straw towers
· make the slowest marble run
· investigate solar energy
· make and investigate a balloon-powered car
· make and investigate elastic band rollers
The winning tower held the marble at a height of 1.86m, the slowest marble down the plastic board took 15.96 seconds and one group lifted 75 weights (nearly 400g) with their model wind turbine.
Balloon buggies and rollers were taken home by enthusiastic visitors to try again and modify later.