Year 5/6 Take on the MIT Challenge

Year 5 and 6 are very excited to have started the first MIT challenge of the year; Living in Space!

This challenge was set by Ariel Ekblaw, who is the founder and Director of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, a team of over 50 graduate students, staff, and faculty actively prototyping the artifacts of our sci-fi space future. To complete the challenge, children have to design, build and test an artifact which could be used in Space to do something we can do on Earth. There are three categories to choose from; art, sports and food. Of course, their design needs to work in a zero gravity environment. The children have come up with some extremely creative ideas and are going to be working on the technology needed to bring them to life next half term. We are aiming to create a voice-activated ‘burger holder’ (to stop the layers of your burger floating off), a magnetic sport, combining soccer and badminton and a journal, pen and stand which can be used to document your adventures in space in writing. After the break we will be exploring the science behind our ideas, learning to program, building prototypes and adapting our plans before completing our final artifacts. Watch this space!