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Lego provides building blocks for learning

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Specially designed Lego robots are helping to give girls at a Southampton school a new and exciting insight into maths, science, technology and engineering.

 

The eight Lego Mindstorm kits, which have been paid for with grants totally £2,000 from Esso and ExxonMobil Chemical at Fawley, are going down a storm at St Anne’s Catholic School in Southampton.

 

The kits enable pupils to build robots which will sense distance, touch, light or sound and react with movement and tasks. Part of the building process involves programming the robots, which develops computer skills.

 

They can be used to support the curriculum, for example, to relate maths to engineering by using the circumference of the wheels to help measure distance and speed.

 

The grants have been made in recognition of the time and effort one employee has put into volunteering with a charity involved in promoting science and the practice of measurement and control technology to young people, called the Institute of Measurement and Control.

 

The ExxonMobil scheme not only helps local organisations, but also improves the links between ExxonMobil and the local community.

 

The grant applicant was Nigel Bushrod, who is a lead instrumentation engineer in the engineering department at Fawley, and also the chairman of the charity for the Wessex region. His work colleague Alan Lawes also serves on the charity committee and his daughter Anna attends St Anne’s School in Southampton.

 

Nigel said: “The Lego kits are hugely popular with schools because they are such a fun and interesting way of learning. We are delighted to work with St Anne’s on this project because the enthusiasm of the staff at the school. It is so important that we get girls as well as boys interested in engineering. ”

 

Gina Longman, head of Design and Technology at St Anne’s School said: “St Anne’s is a specialist science college with maths, so we place great importance on giving the girls the opportunity to experience all types of science and technology.

 

The kits will be used by several groups of Year 8 students. Their project will involve learning to programme the robots and eventually use them to help solve a problem in a simulation of a potentially life-threatening, humanitarian mission.

 

This project should give our students an experience to remember as well as a taster of a part of engineering we would normally be unable to replicate in school. We are very grateful to ExxonMobil for this exciting opportunity.”

 

The ExxonMobil Volunteer Involvement Programme at Fawley, together with its sister scheme for school governors, has so far contributed more than £462,000 to local community projects, since it was started six years ago.

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