DT – Page 6 – Penpol Primary School

From the Computer Screen to the Real World

18th May 201818th May 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

Over the past few weeks Taran has been helping run Computing Club along with some friends on a Thursday lunchtime. Whilst there he’s been using his extra computing time to design and create a plastic storage unit for his tent on a program called Tinkercad.

When I first opened my tent I saw a very handy hook right in the centre. I thought “that could have a hanging basket on it” but instead of designing one hanging basket I designed four and had them 3D printed out in the same colour they were on the computer. I’m going to use my invention for general storage in my tent and I think it will be very useful. – Taran, Y6

He has measured, designed and refined his digital model to the point where he was ready to get it 3D printed. It took nearly 14 hours to print all four parts of the model, but now it’s finished he’s delighted with the result. He now has his very own, unique, storage solution for his tent. Well done Taran, an amazing project.

Computing Speed Challenge: Musical Robots!

27th March 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

This week Class 8 had an unexpected Computing Speed Challenge with the Lego WeDo 2.0 robots. Their task was to design, build and then code a moving robot which makes noises using just the Lego bricks. No sound effects allowed!

To make this even harder, the children only had 45 minutes from start to finish, including tidying up time. The race was on and the children were eager to make the noisiest robot they could.

Here we have Oskar and Henry showing off their robot:

And here are Finley and Lucy with their design:

Finally, here is the robot that Brodie and Patrick built:

Year 6 create books for World Book Day

16th March 2018 by Mark Pollard

World Book Day may have been disrupted by the snow a few weeks ago, but that has not stopped Penpol celebrating the event, just a little later than expected.

The Year 6 children have been creating their own books to take down to the Year 1 classes to read to them. They have reworked some traditional tales, created their own illustrations to support their writing, as well as front covers to make their books look attractive. Well done Year 6!

I really enjoyed creating pictures to support our writing – Sammy

All aboard The Titanic!

2nd February 2018 by Penpol School

Year 2 having been learning all about the Titanic, investigating and researching the questions:

What happened?
Who did and didn’t survive?
Where were they going?
Why did it happen?
How could the disaster have been avoided?

They have really enjoyed compiling facts, colouring pictures, watching clips on the internet, discussing events, compiling a timeline of events and as you can see making some marvellous models at home!

It took me a couple of weeks to make and my dad helped me. The Grand staircase was very special but my favourite bit was when it sank! – Remy – Class 5

My mum helped me, it was tricky sticking the sticks in and I enjoyed painting on the lighted windows – Agnes – Class 5

My model moves. It crashes into the iceberg because I’ve used a magnet Austin

Space Day For Our Budding Year 5 Scientists

24th May 201820th December 2017 by Nic Stanlake

This week the children (and teachers) in Year 5 have celebrated their learning within science this term by taking part in a Science themed Space day. The day was split into three activities including rocket building, space themed art and movie making.

Working in pairs, the children created an iMovie film sharing what they had learnt over the term. This involved collating facts, pictures and pieces of work before organising them into a short two minute film. The movies included their own music, headings and direction.

I loved using the iPads to make movies, I’m definitely downloading the app on my iPad at home! – Emi – Class 12

Whilst some of the children were busy planing and directing their own short movie, the rest were designing and building working rockets, which are set to be launched next week. Using lots of recycled bottles, tubes and pieces of cardboard, the children ‘junk modelled’ rockets which will be powered by water and air pressure.

I tried to make my rocket as streamlined as possible so it had the least amount of air resistance possible, and it worked! – Sam – Class 11

What was particularly pleasing was the effort children put into making their rockets aerodynamic to limit the amount of air resistance, something they had learnt about in their previous science topic on forces.

Due to poor weather, the launching of the children rockets has been postponed until next week where hopefully the conditions will be more favourable.

The third task for our Space Day required the children to ‘Space themselves up’ by adding their photos to a space scene; either in the form of an astronaut on a space walk, or steering a rocket to space. Some examples can be seen in the below.

We rounded off the day with a ‘space walk’ of their very own, down the catwalk as we held Penpol’s first space themed fashion show for the children (and adults) to show off their costumes.

Year 6 create super sock snowmen

17th December 2017 by Mark Pollard

Creativity has once again hit the Year 6 classrooms with wonderful sock snowmen being created. A huge range were created, from the conventional snowman to a polar bear and even Santa himself!

The children planned how they wanted their particular snowman to look before using rice, elastic bands and other socks to decorate them.

It’s been amazing because we could make any type of snowman we wanted – Jordan

Year 6 get creative for Christmas

13th December 2017 by Mark Pollard

Festivities have entered the classroom at Penpol, with Year 6 planning and creating their own festive hats. Some created hats with a festive theme, whilst others came up with their own idea.

As well as this, the children have also been making their own tree decorations, making Christmas houses with Caroline. They have sanded and painted them and will look great on the tree!

We had great fun making the hats and the houses – Sammy

3D Decorations by Key Stage 2

18th September 20184th December 2017 by Jacob Woolcock

This term every child in Key Stage 2 has made their own 3D printed winter decoration.

To explain how they did it, we’ve created a short video for you to enjoy.

It’s been such a fun process helping each child design and make their decorations and Paul and I have really enjoyed seeing their designs come to life. It’s taken nearly five weeks to print them all and while we were waiting we’ve compiled some statistics from the project. – Mr Woolcock.

If you’re interested, you can read lots more about the project here:

And here they are, all 200 decorations!

What’s that noise coming from the Mac Suite?

20th November 2017 by Jacob Woolcock

Since the beginning of November I’ve been asked the same question time and time again: “What’s that noise coming from the Mac Suite, Mr Woolcock?”

It’s a very valid question as there has indeed been a pretty irritating noise coming from the Mac Suite for the last few weeks. The machine making the annoying noise isn’t finished yet though, in fact it’s likely to be making that same, annoying noise for a few more weeks yet.

So what is it doing??

Well, the machine is our Makerbot 3D Printer and it’s currently undertaking the biggest print-run of its life – printing out 200 unique and individual winter decorations which have been designed by the children in Key Stage 2.

Each child in the Juniors has been using an online program called Tinkercad to imagine, design and construct their own decoration, based on any theme they wish.

To get their creative juices flowing I showed each child how they could make a unique and beautiful Snowflake design, which a lot of children actually ended up choosing as their final decoration. However, each child could also design their own decoration with their own choice of colours too.

Since then, myself and Paul have been busy making sure that all 200 decorations get printed. It might seem like a simple task, but in reality it’s far from it! Each 3D model takes around 50 minutes to print and as they all use two colours we also have to stop the printer to change the coloured plastic mid-way through each print. Sometimes it’s a little easier, for example when five children have all chosen a red base and a white top layer, as all five can be printed at once during a morning. But for the most part it’s been a case of setting countless alarms, reminding teachers to pause the printers, scrambling under the table to find the next colour plastic and hoping that the 3D printer doesn’t jam after 4 hours of printing (thus ruining the prints!).

Plenty of late nights and early mornings have been spent coming back into the Mac Suite to set more prints off in the dark, but we’re finally getting towards the end. We’ve now printed over 120 decorations and they are looking INCREDIBLE.

When all the decorations are printed we’ll be giving the children a chance to bring in a small donation of 50p to cover the cost of the plastic filament in return for taking their decoration home to keep forever. The children are already excited about this!

As to what the decorations actually look like? Well, you’ll just have to wait until December to find out. It’d ruin the surprise to share all the photos of them now, but as soon as we’ve got all 200 ready to go we’ll update the Penpol Times so you can see how great they look!

In the meantime, back to the printer for me!

– Mr Woolcock

Aidan races ahead with car design!

17th November 2017 by Mark Pollard

After an inspiring trip to see the BloodHound SSC in Newquay, Aidan from Class 14 took it upon himself to design his own supercar! He made it out of K’Nex, which is a plastic material which can click together to make structures and models, so the possibilities for what you can build are endless. We think that he did a great job – well done Aidan!

The hardest part was to connect the back of the car to the front and joining the top half to the bottom half. It broke a few times but I am really happy with the end result. – Aidan

THE JELLY FRIENDS American blog

War Declared For Year 6!

“Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundation of deep-rooted learning. Through our rich and relevant curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future.”