Year 5 RAF Youth STEM Workshop – Bridge Building Challenge
On Wednesday afternoon, Year 5 had an exciting opportunity to take part in a Royal Air Force Youth STEM workshop, where we became engineers for the day!
Our challenge was to design and build strong, stable bridges using a limited set of materials. We worked in teams to plan, test and improve our structures, just like real engineers in the RAF.
Throughout the session, we used a range of important skills, including:
• Problem solving – figuring out how to make our bridges stronger and more stable when they didn’t quite work the first time.
• Communication – sharing ideas clearly within our groups and listening to each other’s suggestions.
• Teamwork – working together to achieve a common goal and support one another.
• Leadership – some children took on roles to guide their teams and help organise tasks.
• Resilience – not giving up when designs needed improving and trying again with new ideas.
It was fantastic to see how creative and determined everyone was. Some bridges held more weight than we expected, and others taught us important lessons about design and structure.
We are incredibly proud of how Year 5 conducted themselves throughout the workshop. They showed excellent behaviour, enthusiasm, and maturity, representing our school brilliantly.
A huge thank you to the RAF team for delivering such an engaging and inspiring session. Who knows – we may have some future engineers in our class!
