For STEM day at Somerhill this year, prep pupils were joined by Years 1 and 2 as they engaged in various STEM activities.

✋ Prosthetic hand – Year 1
🔦 Shadow Puppets – Year 2
🌉 Bridges – Year 3
⛵ Propeller powered boats – Year 4
🥄 Catapults – Year 5
🚀 Stomp rockets – Year 6

Year 1 children worked to create a moving hand, supported by the Year 7 boys. They investigated the different parts of the hand, their function and connection. After a fiddly morning of trial and error, threading and pulling the end result was a group of proud engineers who showed excellent teamwork and collaboration.
The focus in Year 2 was shadows. Children learnt what a shadow is and how to make shadows bigger and smaller, stronger and fainter. Then, with the help of the Year 7 boys, they created moving shadow puppets and put on a wonderful performance of The Tiger Child in the Mansion Hall for other Year 2 classes.

In Year 3 the boys and girls were challenged to create the strongest bridge, spanning at least 30cm, using cardboard. Mrs Carley had the task of strength-testing the bridges using weights to see who had designed and built the strongest bridge.
Year 4 were tasked with constructing a propeller powered boat using biodegradable foam board and a simple electric motor set up. They spent the morning designing their craft before the boats were launched to power across the swimming pool in a bid to travel the furthest. Well done to team Swimmers whose boat crossed the entire pool.

Year 5 lay siege to castle Somerhill as they built their own catapults, scoring points for hitting the castle or characters, knocking over a knight and maximum points if they knocked over the queen.

Year 6 boys and girls put their aerodynamic knowledge to the test when launching stomp rockets across the back lawns of the mansion. Having tested prototypes, their final designs were sent skywards with the winning team reaching an impressive distance of 35m.

A great day of collaboration. Huge thanks to Mr Leach for organising such a fantastic event.