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QE’s new robotics suite is already proving a major hit with the boys, after being opened at the start of term.

The dedicated facility in the Technology corridor has been created in a large former changing room and fully equipped to help young roboteers develop their skills.

It is expected that QE will field a record number of robotics teams – possibly as many as ten – in the 2019-2020 season, so the room is constantly busy before and after school, as well as at breaktimes and lunch.

This will be only the fourth year in which QE has been involved in the VEX robotics competitions, yet the School has very quickly made its mark on the world stage. In 2017, two teams won places at the international finals in Kentucky at the first attempt; in 2018, QE became the first-ever UK school to win a world title, and last academic year a record four junior VEX IQ) and one senior (VEX EDR) teams picked up a string of awards in the US, with one becoming the first UK team ever to reach the competition’s Teamwork Challenge finals.

QE’s Head of Technology teacher Michael Noonan said: “Enthusiasm for robotics here is extremely strong, so we are delighted to be able to offer the boys a dedicated facility, which includes the School’s first permanent EDR field as well as two raised permanent IQ fields.

“We’re all looking forward to another great year of competition nationally and, hopefully, internationally,” added Mr Noonan, who won the Teacher of the Year Award at last year’s UK VEX robotics finals in Telford.

In addition to the new IQ and EDR fields, the suite features:

• A new smartboard for displaying real-time game information;
• Six desktop computers for CAD and Design applications
• A breakout space with two whiteboards, to spur creative discussions
• A library of books, resources and past designs
• Ample storage space
• Wireless internet
• And a display area for QE’s rapidly growing collection of trophies!

Year 8 boys combined Mathematics and Science with some exciting new materials to come up with creative solutions to everyday problems.

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) enrichment day involved pupils working in teams, with each allocated a different business role.

After first designing and building a prototype, they then pitched it to a team of ‘dragons’ – expert assessors modelled on those seen on TV’s Dragons’ Den.

The day was run by Simon Kettle, Executive Director of STEMworks, a not-for-profit company dedicated to promoting STEM.

He gave the boys a design brief, encouraging them to think about possible applications for materials such as D3o – a substance discovered at the University of Hertfordshire in 1999 that is soft and flexible when worn, but impact-resistant in a collision. The pupils also considered how the design of mobile apps might be used to help disabled people.

The boys worked in their teams in roles covering graphic design, marketing and product manufacture, and as the managing director.

The winners chosen by the dragons included a prototype for luggage that could be used to charge a phone whilst a passenger waited in an airport and a wristwatch to help those suffering with dementia remember to take their medication.

The day was supported by STEM ambassadors from German multinational Siemens and the London-based engineering consultancy, Waterman Group, who spoke to the boys about careers in engineering.

Five veterans of QE’s past national and international successes in space design competitions returned to Barnet to help stage an inter-school Galactic Challenge.

Aadil Kara (OE 2010–2017), who has just completed the second year of a Physics degree at Imperial College, is currently Chair of the Galactic Challenge (GC) – a regional competition for younger pupils and a sister competition to the UK Space Design Competition (UKSDC). In his final year at QE, Aadil progressed from the UKSDC to the International Space Settlement Design Competition, hosted by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Aadil, worked with QE’s Head of Physics, Jonathan Brooke, to help the School host a Galactic Challenge for secondary schools in London.

“Old Elizabethans are currently playing a key role in the organisation of both the UKSDC and the GC,” said Mr Brooke. “I’m hugely impressed by their willingness to give up their time to support these competitions which give children from schools across the country experience of working in large teams under a tight deadline – a taste of the challenges associated with professional life that are difficult to replicate in the classroom.”

Helping Aadil and Mr Brooke were Aadil’s QE contemporaries and former UKSDC co-competitors, Neelesh Ravichandran, Harikesan Baskaran and Sam Bayney, as well as David Dubinksy, who attended QE from 2012–2016. Neelesh, Harikesan and Sam all served as Coordinators on the day, while David, who, like Aadil, reached the international stages of UKSDC in his year, was the volunteer CEO for one of the competing teams, or ‘companies’.

The Galactic Challenge is a space industry simulation challenge for students aged 10-14. Children design a settlement in space within just a few hours, competing against other teams, as well as the clock.

At QE, in addition to the School’s own Year 7 company, named Columbus Aviation, there were entries from: Dame Alice Owen’s School; The Charter School, North Dulwich; The Henrietta Barnett School and The Latymer School.

Aadil said: “We run GC competitions throughout the country firstly to stimulate students’ interests in STEM from the early ages of secondary education, and secondly to help them develop ‘soft skills’, including team-working and interpersonal skills. Having first participated in the process in the Sixth Form, it was a pleasure to be able to bring the competition back to the School.”

The ‘companies’ worked to complete a task set by the fictional Foundation Society. In the morning, they were given a Request for Proposal (RFP) co-written by Aadil that reflects a typical design brief in the space engineering industry; they then spent the day producing designs in response, assisted by a volunteer ‘CEO’ for each company.

The scenario involved them jumping forward to 2069, coinciding with the celebration of the centenary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Students produced designs for Armstrong, the first holiday resort on the moon, named in honour of Neil Armstrong, famously the first person to step on to its surface in 1969.

The Armstrong resort had to include a commemorative area around the Apollo 11 landing site and to host trips from tourists visiting from other settlements around Earth’s orbit. Competitors also had to find a way to make the lower half of the Apollo 11 Lunar Model (which remains on the moon’s surface) the centrepiece of a tourist attraction, whilst considering how to conserve the site.

The companies’ design proposals considered almost all aspects of the design of a futuristic space settlement, from the activities offered to tourists to the methods of power generation.

At the end of the day, the companies presented their work in ten minutes to an audience of parents, their peers, and a judging panel. In the presentations, students suggested ideas including: settlements made out of recycled materials; rearing rabbits on the moon, and Earthrise viewing platforms, with the home QE team suggesting lunar bungee-jumping. The winning team was a combined company – Astrodyne Delta – drawn from Dame Alice Owen’s School and The Charter School, North Dulwich.

Afterwards, Neelesh, who has come to the end of his second year at Imperial, where he is reading Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said: “Volunteering at UKSDC is a truly rewarding experience. The enthusiasm, curiosity and ingenuity of the participants is awe-inspiring and has served to remind me of why I study engineering. Both these competitions are a test of character and imagination, for volunteers and participants alike.”

Harikesan has finished the second year of a Mechanical Engineering/Computational Engineering and Design at Southampton. He starts a placement with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars this month. “Volunteering at the UKSDC and GC competitions provides an invaluable opportunity to encourage students to see STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics] in its true colours.”

David, who has just finished the third year of an Aeronautical Engineering degree at Durham University, still recalls the inspiration he drew from the UKSDC himself: “Taking part in the competition sparked a strong obsession with space; I was drawn by the utopian, fantastical designs of future space settlements and enjoyed imagining life in such a future. I opened a space society at QE, which some OEs may remember, and attended the annual Student Space Conference in Year 12, a fantastic event organised by the same parent organisation as the Galactic Challenge, the UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UK SEDS). At Durham, I’ve also joined the university’s SEDS branch where we had some great networking with brave local startups and have helped organise trips to the Student Space Conference. My first internship was in a small electronics company, as it was technically in the space sector.”

Although the internship proved to be a disappointing experience, during his time there he was able to re-focus on what he really wanted – “to pursue unprecedented and utopian technology design” – which led him into the field he is currently targeting, namely “minimal-fuel, lighter-than-air travel, in other words engineering modern blimps and airships!” It is, reflects David, “all a long chain of events from saying ‘yes’ to my friend asking me if I wanted to fill an empty space in the first QE UKSDC team, which I turned down at first because I was nervous!”

Sam has finished the second year of a Medicine degree at Southampton. He said: “It’s good to see kids taking an interest in these types of projects at this age – it develops skills they will need to solve the global problems facing us in the near future.”

A QE team impressed the judges with their presentation skills as they explained how their glider drone design could help save black rhinoceroses from extinction.

Judges at the live finals of the International STEM Youth Innovation Competition at the Royal Air Force Museum in Colindale, London, unanimously agreed that QE’s Year 12 Rhinodrive team should win the Oral Presentation Award.

The competition involved several elements, from the judging of presentations conducted by industry and conservation experts, to the actual flying of a drone, where the challenge facing the teams was to survey 15 species in their simulated natural habitat.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “It had been a long journey requiring great dedication for our boys to even reach the international finals, so they were exhilarated to be there, even though the standard of competition was very tough indeed.”

“The boys performed admirably, using the drone technology to spot all but one animal on their survey – a pesky snake camouflaged into a tree branch!”

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) competition, run by the British International Education Association (BIEA), drew entries from schools in countries including China, the United States, Macau, Poland and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Its theme was Fighting Extinction Using Drone Technology.

The team comprised Deeps Gandhi, Aryan Jain, Simon Sherriff, Ben Domb and Tarun Bhaskaran. They secured their place in the international finals partly because they opted to design and build their own drone using parts which they 3D-printed themselves, rather than buying an off-the-shelf, proprietary machine, as many other teams did. “This set them in an élite group, along with a gifted and talented academy team from Palo Alto, California,” said Mr Noonan.

Even more impressively, they designed and built the drone while adhering very strictly to their £100 allocated budget, again, unlike many of the other teams.

However, what had been an advantage earlier in the competition would prove to be a challenge in the finals, as the demonstration flight at the start of the day’s competition used the very same drone that many of the teams were using, thus giving QE’s competitors the opportunity to pick up tips by observing the trial flight. The QE team nevertheless performed well, Mr Noonan stated.

“After the judges visited, the boys were in a confident mood that the presentation of their ideas and professional layout of their resources had set them in good stead.” That confidence proved justified when the team’s name was one of the first to be read out as the presentations began.

And although naturally disappointed to miss out on the top prize of £5,000, there were no real hard feelings, as Mr Noonan explained: “A Bosnian team won this accolade for an incredible performance, despite challenges of funding and lack of facilities. The boys felt this was well deserved, and simply revelled in what had been a great experience.”

Team member Deeps said: “Participating in this competition has not only allowed us to think about our ability to impact global issues such as conservation through STEM, but has also taught us key skills such as time management, teamwork and communication.”

After the awards ceremony, the boys headed to Waterloo Pier to board the London Belle barge and then spent an enjoyable evening on the Thames in the company of the judges and other participants.

Three Year 9 boys are through to the national finals of the Big Bang competition after their idea for a hi-tech device to replace the white sticks used by the blind impressed both the judges and the visiting crowds at the London regional heat.

The boys’ Device to Aid the Visually Impaired is an ergonomic headset housing complicated circuitry that uses object-detection algorithms to warn users of hazards lurking nearby.

Aryan Jindal, Bhunit Santhiramoulesan and Ashwin Sridhar made full use of the opportunity to showcase their work and discuss it with spectators stopping by their stand at the Big Bang London Central event hosted by Westminster Kingsway College at Kings Cross. The Big Bang programme comprises a national Big Bang competition and a series of events across the country, all aimed at bringing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) to life for younger people.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “The students created this device in our dedicated design area and they hope the project will help provide a cheap and affordable alternative to the stick and other measures that visually impaired people are currently offered.”

“The device proved to be a major hit among spectators and judges alike, so it was perhaps unsurprising that the boys succeeded in being selected for the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers competition next year, where they will present to thousands of visitors in the NEC in Birmingham.

“Suitably impressed by the demonstration of the technology, one computer scientist from a major company even left his contact details with regard to future collaboration: the company is looking at using the same type of technology in CCTV in large railway stations to help monitor who is using the facility and to detect potential threats to public safety.”

One of the trio, Aryan, said afterwards: “This was my first STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics] enrichment activity outside of School and I loved it! I was really nervous before the judges visited, but by the time we had to speak with them it was fine, and by the time the second panel came it was more like a conversation than a presentation. I can’t wait to go to the national finals and we will try to develop our work even further for this.”

Also displaying their work at Big Bang London were a team of Year 12 students on the eve of their appearance at the finals of the International STEM Youth Innovation Competition at the Royal Air Force Museum in Colindale, London. Deeps Gandhi, Aryan Jain, Simon Sherriff, Ben Domb and Tarun Bhaskaran secured their place there by designing and building a glider drone to help in the conservation of black rhinos.

“It proved to be a useful exercise, as the boys had the chance to speak with fellow competitors and mentors from around the world, as well as preparing the final touches to their presentation for the following day and staging a practice flight,” said Mr Noonan.

A QE Sixth Form team competes this week in the finals of a new international STEM education competition after impressing judges with their plans to use technology in the struggle to protect endangered animals.

They will be up against teams from all over the world competing to show how drones could be deployed to conserve species threatened with extinction.

The boys brought in advanced Mathematics and used 3D printing and complex electronics in developing their entry proposal and making their own glider drone.

The finals of the International STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) Youth Innovation Competition are being held at the Royal Air Force Museum, in London.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “I am proud of the team and of the hard work they have put into this competition. From the initial selection of animal species to the creation of the report and to the development of the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] according to their designs, it was all the result of the team’s own little-by-little exploration and progression.”

The competition is organised by the British International Education Association (BIEA). Run for the first time last year, it was open only to British pupils, attracting entries from more than 2,000 schools. This year, it has been opened up to schools from around the world.

The 2019 theme is Fighting extinction using drone technology. There is a first prize of £5,000 for the team with the highest overall score.

QE’s team, who are all from Year 12, are in the 15-17 year-old age category. The team comprises: Tarun Bhaskaran, Ben Domb, Deeps Gandhi, Aryan Jain and Simon Sherriff.

The team initially drew up a long list of endangered animals and explored the role drones could play in protecting them. As a result of these discussions, they decided to develop glider drones.

For their choice of subject, they wanted an animal with a large distribution area, so picked the black rhinoceros. Further research followed, as a result of which the team embraced military surveillance techniques to monitor black rhino populations effectively, while also using a complex equation to calculate the appropriate pixel resolution for the final design.

They decided to build the required drone themselves. This meant they could show off their ideas to best effect, but naturally made the process more challenging.

To meet this challenge, the team divided themselves into three sections and worked separately before coming together to provide the finished entry. One group was responsible for electronics, another for the video and a third for the fuselage. The electronics group focused on providing the control system and system compatibility; the video group made the video submission, wrote scripts, arranged 3D printing and coordinated the budget, and the fuselage group designed the chassis and structure of the drone.

The competition’s final deadline coincided with School examinations. This left the boys with some tricky time-management issues, which they resolved by drawing up a detailed division of work, all carefully scheduled outside of examination study time. The 14-hour days paid off when they duly submitted the report on time and then heard that they were among the finalists.