This week, we travelled to Butterknowle School to take part in a Science Workshop ran by The Centre of Life in Newcastle. We took part in lots of activities about ‘forces’. In the morning we performed circus skills including juggling, plate spinning and balance boards to find out the forces at work. We then went on to do a Gear Workshop, looking at gears of different sizes and how they work.
After lunch Yesme and Hayley from the Life Centre showed us how to use pulleys and we experimented by lifting weights with different pulleys to see what effect they had. Next was the Lever Workshop where we experimented with lifting different loads with levers. By changing the pivot point on the seesaw, Rose was able to lift Mrs O’Brien!
For the grand finale we got into groups of 3 to invent a machine to knock a domino over. This in turn knocked another domino over, which activated the next groups’ machine and so on! The final part of the giant machine triggered ‘Patricia the Custard Pie Thrower’ that splatted Yesme in the face!
Leon said, “It was such good fun! I loved doing all the experiments especially making the pie machine. We had to test our machines over and over to make sure they worked.”
