SATRO COMPANY CHALLENGE - SIEMENS "NEXT BIG THING"

Today was the final judging for the KS4 Siemens Company Challenge. Taking place at Siemens headquarters in Frimley, the judging comes after 4 months of very hard work! Teams from ACS Cobham School, Charterhouse School, The Connaught School, Gordon's School, LVS Ascot, Reading Girls School and Tomlinscote School attended the Kick-off event back in January, when they were given briefs for their projects. The teams were given the opportunity to choose from a list of 5 categories, on which they would base their project and 'invent' a product. The categories were:

• Improving a patients experience when being scanned to identify potential health problems.
• A way of improving healthcare for elderly patients.
• The use of technology, internet and mobile devices to ensure that people living in a remote part of the world have access to the same level of healthcare as those who live in cities and major towns.
• Using products and technology that is available for us, improving the immediate follow up and response to save more lives after a possible natural disaster (tsunamis, floods).
• Thinking of patients, doctors and engineers, a way to control an infectious disease (e.g. Ebola) and reducing it's impact. 

Over the past 4 months, each group of students has been working with a staff member from Siemens who has been acting as a mentor to help guide the students in their project. The students will have learnt about marketing and product development, and what it is like to work in the technology/engineering industry - directly from those who do. This experience will have provided the students with a great item to include in university applications or interviews. 

Today the students have been presenting their projects to a team of judges. The teams were working towards 3 winning categories, "Best Presentation", "Innovative Research & Development", and "Overall Winner". Each team lead a very strong presentation and had worked very hard in the months running up to today's judging. The winners of each category were as follows; Overall Winners - Reading Girls School, Best Presentation - Tomlinscote School and Innovative Research & Development -  Gordon's School.

2015 SATRO Problem Solving Challenge Grand Final

The well established SATRO Problem Solving Challenge is a competition for teams of six students in KeyStage groups 3-5 (years 7-13) and is open to all secondary schools in Surrey and the surrounding areas. The teams are set a problem to solve within a set time, using only the materials provided (anything from some Polos to a piece of tin foil!). The winning teams are those in each key stage group who have been judged to have best met the criteria set out in the problem.

The culmination of the 2015 SATRO Problem Solving Challenge heats which took place around the county will be on Thursday 12^th March 2015. The two highest scoring teams from each of the 3 key stages at each heat will go up against each other at Charterhouse School to decide the 2015 victors.

This years Problem Solving Challenge has been kindly supported by Allianz, CBS Butler, The Manly Trust, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, The Armourers and Brasiers Company and the Institution of Chemical Engineers. Their support has allowed SATRO to host over 70 schools, reaching over a thousand students; enabling them to develop their team working, problem solving and time management skills, as well as have fun whilst learning.

Students from our SATRO Problem Solving Challenge heats said:

“The best part of the day was working together and producing something I am proud of”

“The best bit about today was that it was fun to take part and its hands on rather than questions.”

“We learned and improved lots of skills such as teamwork, and it was a fun activity”