Roller-Coaster Challenge

The Roller-Coaster Challenge

'It's what's inside that counts!'

The Aim and Objectives:

To get a greater share of students interested in STEM subjects with an aim of selecting them as subject choices.

To play a key role within the local community and to create a 'Loud Legacy' for Siemens support in the community and education.

To engage further with the local community through schools and the
educational sector with particular reference to STEM subjects and also connect with local businesses.

To promote Siemens as an employer of choice as well as engineering and manufacturing as exciting career destinations.

To have measurable indicators for the impact Siemens has when engaging with educational establishments for the aims/objectives stated above.

For example: data on the opinion of STEM subjects, Siemens, Engineering and Manufacturing pre and post competition; STEM subject up-take.

The Build

Drivers and controls on their own can be seen as not very interesting until you look at what they are used to control; such as the drivers that are used for the Nemesis at Alton Towers and the Pepsi Max.

With this in mind, students were presented with a kit of working, technical parts from which to build their Roller coasters. They then had 10 weeks to design and build their unique Roller coaster concept and put together a brief presentation video outlining their progress.

The process was designed to encourage participation from pupils with a variety of  skill sets – from innovators and project managers to creative thinkers and entrepreneurs with drive, passion and the ability to work as a team.

The Rules

• You will receive a box which contains all the essential components of your build project
• The Roller-Coaster must be fixed to a base of no bigger than 1250mm x 750mm
• The competition is open to pupils from years 7-9 and you will work as part of a team (between 4 and 6 in a team)
• Your task is to create a working roller-coaster of any design of your choice
• You may use any additional materials as part of your build process
• You will have a total of 10 weeks to complete all aspects of the challenge
• The challenge includes building the working roller coaster, measuring the avg speed/speed of biggest drop/highest point/lowest point of your roller-coaster
• Designing and producing a 30 sec advertisement of your roller-coaster from early designs to completion
• Creating a paper reflection of the stages of design to be used as part of the final judging process (maximum of 8 x A4 sheets)
• You will, as a team, present your final design to the panel of judging experts at Congleton Town Hall on 25th Feb 2015