On Thursday 19 September, our A level physics students took part in Space Insight Day, a unique STEM workshop led by our special guest Mr Robin Mobbs, which involved problem solving, team building and hands-on activities. Below you can read a few comments from the students who took part in the workshop.
It was a privilege to meet Mr Mobbs, a physics teacher who formerly worked with the astronaut Tim Peake! From being given the opportunity to hold a real piece of the Moon to working with hi-tech Space software programmes, such as Tracker, this event left all of us in awe of the spectacular wonders of Physics.
By delving into the astonishing realm of Physics, beyond our conventional A-level curriculum, Mr Mobbs enlightened us to the incredible phenomena that were possible through the application of our knowledge, such as space travel. We were also given the chance to see real aerogel up close – currently known as the lightest solid ever produced on Earth, made of up to 99.98% of air – as well as launching our own paper rockets at the end of the session. One thing I found quite fascinating was that shining a laser through the maple leaf on a Canadian dollar causes the laser to diffract, projecting its value onto the wall.
The image below demonstrates the pattern shown when a laser is shone through the maple leaf of a $10 Canadian note.
Overall, I am tremendously grateful for being able to participate in such a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime event. (Najiha, Yr12)
Imagine how exciting it would be if you could enter the digital world. Instead of watching a video of a rocket taking off, imagine being right there, watching the fuel engines ignite and hearing the roaring of flames, LIVE!
One of the most thrilling aspects of the Space Insight Day, amidst watching a colleague put on a MiG fighter jet jumpsuit, was learning how to use a software, called Tracker, that made it feel as though you could really break this fourth wall between reality and technology. With Tracker, we were shown how you could model the kinematics of a point mass within a video, so you could not only marvel at a turtle chasing some lettuce but also directly model his speed, acceleration, and displacement as a graph! Nothing can stop that eager turtle. Watching a graph of velocity and time being built as two steel balls collided was incredible, and with proficiency in Tracker being such a valued skill in several professions, it felt most humbling to be able to experiment with its many different functions. (Tariq, Yr13)
Participating in the Physics event was a great way to expand our knowledge and experience of the real world and learn what students like us go on to do in the future with their degrees. I learned so many great things today that we wouldn’t get the chance to in class, and what amazes me even more is that we didn’t do it the conventional way, involving books and formulas.
Additionally, we got to learn about a new program called Tracker, which we were able to use to calculate speeds of different objects travelling in videos. We also carried out two experiments, one of them involving making rockets and firing them. Overall, I really enjoyed this event as it was extremely informative and interesting.(Honey, Yr12)
