Barking Abbey School

CEME
The Centre for Excellence in Manufacturing and Engineering at the Ford Motor plant in Dagenham is a “State of the Art” Engineering centre.

Barking Abbey students were invited along to their Technology Day. Barking Abbey students were able to experience remote control of vehicles and meet the “Chaos Crew” from robot wars with their “Dalek” and remote controlled office chair.

Students were given a series of Engineering Challenges requiring that they design and build a working prototype and then test their product. Demonstrating ingenuity, inventiveness, time management and team work, the skills that all designers and engineers need.

They experienced the advanced control systems that are used in Formula 1 cars and fast jet fighter aircraft with the “Heads up” displays in the head gear visor.

Then came “The Rocket Science.” Life must be getting very boring if you are unimpressed by BIG FIREWORKS. It isn’t every day that you get this close to a genuine space rocket of the current generation.

Bridge Building

Bridges are large constructions and an understanding of structures is useful when trying to design and make a bridge that will not fall down. Barking Abbey often lays on a BIG STRUCTURES BRIDGE BUILDING experience for GCSE students in years 10 and 11. Here are some of our students getting to grips with the problems involved.

British Airways London Eye
On the 7th of May 2000 a group of Year 9 students went to the Institute of Architects and Structural Engineers in Whitehall. To set them up for a design brief, they were given a lecture by Julia Barfield and David Marks who were the architects who designed the wheel. The students from Barking Abbey competed against students from various City of London schools to build a working structure of The Wheel. We successfully completed our task within the time allowed and I must say, we did make quite a mess in their hall. We were judged to have come second which was very good considering the quality of the opposition.

London Eye Capsule

Then came the good bit, a VIP trip on The London Eye with David Marks, the designer. The weather could not have been better. From the top of the wheel we had clear views over the whole of London. Absolutely brilliant.

Rotary Club International Technology Tournament
Barking abbey entered three teams for the Rotary Club International Technology Tournament on 6th of March 2003 at Eastbury School. This competition attracted entries from over twenty teams of students. The teams were competing in three age categories.

Students form years 7-9, 10-11 and 12-13. Barking Abbey won two of the three trophies contested with their teamwork, innovation and design ideas to design, build and test their remote controlled robot recovery vehicle.

Technology Schools Annual Competition
Each year Barking Abbey enters a team of Year 9 students into the TECHNOLOGY SCHOOLS ANNUAL COMPETITION which is usually held at Loxford school. The students are set two different challenges during the day.

One is to design and make a wind powered generator. The second challenge shown here is to design and build a model for a self righting Oil Rig Platform. We are usually successful in this competition and have been known to come away having taken both of the prizes awarded on the day.

Technology Triathlon
Here at Barking Abbey we like to stress the ingenuity and inventiveness of our students, so every so often we split the Year 8 students into teams of four and set them a series of three challenges;
1. Build the highest tower
2. The strongest platform
3. The most economical support for the weight of brick.

The only problem is we do not give the students any strong materials so if they are to succeed they must use what they have very intelligently.