St. Emilie's Catholic Primary School — Archive

Synergy Schools Solar Car Challenge

April 10, 2019
Kerrie Cogger
· Extra-Curricular · News · Science · Technology and Learning · Year 6 · Year 6 Blue · Year 6 Gold

Our reported Ava Thorpe shares her experience of the day.

Hello staff, parents and students. St Emilie’s have been to the grand final of the Synergy Schools Solar Car Challenge at Optus stadium on the 9th of April 2019. We went in a maxi taxi at 9:00am. We were all feeling very excited and nervous about the day ahead.

We arrived there at 9:30am and after we got signed in, we found our table and had a look at our equipment. At this point we were quite excited but nervous. We hoped our car would be good on the day.

We went through our box to make sure we had everything. At 9:45am we got prepared for the building process. We went outside and had a look at the track to see what it was like.

By 10:17am and we were ready to start the building process scheduled for 10:30am and at this stage we were so super nervous about today’s challenge. We started off well and first we took out our supplies. First Sophia E and Jacob put the guide pins in. Sophia C, Sophia E and Jacob put the axel and the wheels into the chassis.

Jack attached the wires to the motor and switch. Jack also attached the alligator clips to the wires so it could connect. Everyone helped to put the gears into the wheels. We placed the spacers into the axels to make the wheels run more smoothly. Then we attached the cable ties to the switch to hold the switch in place. We exchanged the small wheels for all big wheels.

We kept the solar panel in the shade. We decided to elevate the solar panel a little bit so we could get more sun. Attaching the solar panel was a bit harder than it looked. Jack and Jacob also attached the battery pack in case it was too cloudy for the solar panel. It was a hot day but thankfully was also a sunny day. Placing the wires on the alligator clips was very hard to do.

Once completed we went outside to test drive it. Our car wasn’t going fast enough. Our average time for 20 metres was 8 seconds. We were confused with what was going on with our car. We spent the time trying to figure out what was wrong with our car by giving it a few more test drives. We got the time down to 7 seconds. Our car improved.

7 news were there recording our challenge. We thought we could work out what was wrong with our car. We placed the solar panel in the exact same spot as before and put the small wheels back on. We put double sided tape on the wheels to make it sort of stick. It did the trick last time, so we have high hopes for this time.

By 11:16am we were happy with our car and have we have come up with a name for our car. We named it ‘Weapon’. We polished up our car to make it the best we could. We did one more try for good measure. Our car was really slow. There were only 19 minutes left until the races start. There was so much going on!

At 11:30am we went to get some morning tea and we had a chocolate muffin. There are 5 minutes left of the building process. At 11:40am we went outside to start racing and we were really excited. We were in round 3 and we were versing Huntingdale PS and Amaroo PS. On both races we came second and on the third race we came third. Thankfully we were into the next round. We fixed our car and it was performing better.

On the next round we were versing Amaroo and Bunbury. On the first race it was a false start on the second race we came third. On the third race we had another false start. We did not go on to the next challenge. The best place we could achieve was either fifth or sixth. We did one more race and we came 6th place.

After the award ceremony a drone flew over us and took photos and videos. The school that won was Amaroo PS but overall we had an amazing time and everyone who participated should be very proud. Even though we didn’t win, we were the first year sixes to get in the grand final from St Emilie’s CPS. Thank you for reading and thank you Optus stadium, Synergy and STAWA for having us. We really appreciated it. Also thank you Mrs Andrews and Mrs Cogger for coming on this amazing journey with us. Thank you parents and everyone who came to support us.

Goodbye and thank you so much for having a chance to read this amazing journey and opportunity for us.

Thank you and have a great day!

By Ava Thorpe

Here is a video recorded and put together by Jayden Victor.

Solar car grand final.

Year 6 Robogals incursion

May 22, 2018
Kerrie Cogger
· Classroom News · News · Science · Technology and Learning · Year 6 · Year 6 Blue · Year 6 Gold

On Tuesday the year 6 girls had a Robogals incursion. Robogals is a student run organisation that aims to inspire and empower young women to consider studying engineering and related fields. Robogals offer engineering and technology workshops free-of-charge in their local communities, focusing on encouraging girls from primary to secondary school to explore an interest, as well as cultivate self-confidence, in these areas.

Our presenter was Aaron. Aaron commenced the workshop with a presentation about STEM careers.

Aaron then showed the students how to program the Lego Mindstorms robots.

The students were placed into their cooperative teams and given time to experiment with he robots.

Our first challenge was to program the robot so that it travelled in a ‘square’.

Aaron was available to help the students if they encountered any difficulties.

Here are some photos of the students enjoying the incursion.

Mrs Cogger would like to thank Aaron and Dil from Robogals for providing this wonderful opportunity of learning, fun and collaboration.

2018 Synergy Solar Car Challenge

March 27, 2018
Kerrie Cogger
· Classroom News · Science · Technology and Learning · Year 6 · Year 6 Blue · Year 6 Gold

This morning Mrs Cogger had the pleasure of taking four of our Year 6 students to Mazenod College to compete in the Synergy Solar Car Challenge. Synergy and STAWA (Science Teacher’s Association of WA) provided solar car kits to schools who had registered for the project and challenge. The kit included enough materials for the students to build solar cars. The students have conducted investigations with the solar cars such as

Which wheels give the car it’s greatest speed over 20m?
What panel angle generates the most energy?

At 9:30am the competition commenced. The students had 80 minutes to build a solar car from scratch and test it out. There was a ‘hum’ of enthusiastic and engaged Year 6 and 8 scientists at work in the hall at Mazenod College.

The goal of the competition was to race the car along a 20m track made out of corflute board. One student set their car at the start line and at the finish line another student had to ‘catch’ the car so that the car didn’t crash into the sand bags.

Mrs Cogger would like to add her own comments about the day. The students were a delight to take to the competition. They used their problem solving skills and faced all the challenges with a positive attitude. They were polite and extremely well -behaved. The students were happy to celebrate the success of the other competitors.

And to top it off we came 3rd. Congratulations to Josh D, Josh H, Loren and Joanna.

To view photos of the Synergy Solar Car Challenge click the link below.

2018 Synergy Solar Car Challenge

Investigating a crime scene in Science !!

October 16, 2017
Kerrie Cogger
· Blog · Classroom News · Science · Technology and Learning · Year 6

This week our 6B students had an incursion with Joel Booth from Murdoch Science Outreach. A crime scene investigation was brought to life in this workshop. The students explored the chemical properties (such as solubility and pH) of different white powders and then used their reasoning skills to identify an unknown substance recovered from a crime scene.

The workshop commenced with Joel putting on his white lab coat and talking to the students about the investigation.

Here are some images of the students using the pH indicator to identify which colour their solution matched with on the pH scale.

Each team of students had four powders to investigate.

The students also did an iodine test with Betadine to test their powder for starch.

The final activity was to identify two ‘mystery powders’ and then use their skills from the first part of the lesson to work out what these powders were. Each team had success with this as they were able to work out what their powders were.

Joel will be returning to St Emilie’s next week to conduct the investigation with 6G. It was a great experience for the students to work with a chemical sciences student and to hear about Joel’s experiences in the lab and his plans for a career in chemical sciences.

Robogals

May 24, 2017
Kerrie Cogger
· Classroom News · Curriculum News · Science · Technology and Learning · Year 6 · Year 6 Blue · Year 6 Gold

Last Friday the year 6 girls had a a Robogals incursion. Robogals offers technology workshops free-of-charge in their local communities, focusing on encouraging girls from primary to secondary school to explore an interest, as well as cultivate self-confidence, in these areas. Introducing female engineering students to girls at a young age also provides visibility to female role models, of which there is a significant deficit in the STEM field.

Aaron and Kim arrived with a case full of Lego Mindstorms robots and laptops. The session started with a presentation from Aaron about Robogals, STEM and the need in the community for females to study STEM courses. Then Kim explained to the girls about how to use ‘code’ to operate and control their robot.

The students made up teams of three and collected their equipment.

Our first challenge was to make the robot travel in a square.

Some of the students took the task seriously and even drew a rough plan.

Our Year 6 girls requested a group photo with Aaron and Kim from Robogals and with their robots. Mrs Cogger and the girls throughly enjoyed the incursion. We are sure that the visit has ‘sparked’ some interest in the girls considering STEM courses for a future career.

Ava and Mia created this iMovie about the incursion. Click on the link below.

Robogals

Lastly Mrs Cogger would like to say that she arrived at school this morning and waiting on her desk was a lovely thank you card from the Year 6 girls. It made her day.

Technology and Parenting

March 14, 2017
Stuart Munro
· For Families · From the Principal · Parent Resources · Technology and Learning

Download (PDF, 263KB)

Year 4 2017 1 to 1 Bootcamp–Reminder

December 15, 2016
Stuart Munro
· Messages · Technology and Learning · Year 4

Parent Bootcamp for Year 4 in 2017 Families is to be held :

Thursday 2nd February 5.00pm – 5.45pm in the school hall

At least one parent and their Year 4 child is asked to please attend this opportunity.

If you have any questions you would like answered specifically please email the Office by Wednesday 1 February at the following address and write QUESTIONS FOR 1:1 Bootcamp Year 4 2017 in the subject box:

StEmiliesAdmin@cathednet.wa.edu.au

Thank you!

Parent Resource – CYBER SAFETY

Resource for Parents – ONLINE SAFETY

Parent Bootcamp for Year 4 Families

Parent Bootcamp for Year 4 Families is to be held :

THIS Wednesday 10th February 5.00pm – 6.15pm in the school hall

AIR CONDITIONING WILL BE CRANKED UP TO HIGH!! 🙂

At least one parent and their Year 4 child is asked to please attend this opportunity.

If you have any questions you would like answered specifically please email the Office by Tuesday morning at the following address and write QUESTIONS FOR 1:1 Bootcamp Evening Team in the subject box:

admin@stemiliescps.wa.edu.au

Thank you!

1:1 FAQ’s

Following on from our 1:1 meeting last week, we have received a lot of positive feedback about the initiative and we thank all of you for coming along.

We have answered a few more questions based upon the proposal that parents pay for the Macs via school fees for a period of 3 years ( the school takes out a Master Lease)..

CLICK HERE

We have also received some feedback from parents about the possibility of being able to buy the device outright. This option is being looked into and we will share information as part of the survey coming out in the next few weeks.

Thank you!