Barry Comprehensive School

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Report by Rhodri Phillips

On Tuesday 2 nd November, a group of four year 9 pupils from Barry Comprehensive School travelled to Glamorgan University, Treforest, to take part in an engineering competition.

The group included: Rhodri Phillips, David Bryan, Rhys Hocking and Anthony Copeland. The four boys arrived at the University about 9.45 am and were directed into a room where there were pupils from four other schools. In that room a presentation was given about the timetable for the day and an overview of engineering.

Shortly after they were taken to a large room where they were split up into groups with pupils from other schools.

The challenge was set!

The groups had to make a tunnel out of straws, card, paper and tape within a 2-hour time limit. The teamwork and cooperation needed to work together also helped everyone to make new friends. The teams also took part in a quiz.

At last it was time to test the tunnels. The judges placed our tunnels on a table and put 2 kg bags of sand on top of them until they collapsed. There were extra marks available for presentation, teamwork and how well the team did in the quiz. After all the excitement of the testing it was lunchtime. After lunch the final results were given and the results were close. One of the groups with a Barry Comprehensive pupil came a close third but nobody managed higher.

To end the exciting day we were given a tour of the engineering department in the University.