Year Nine Get Hands-On at QinetiQ

Last Friday, a team of Year Nine pupils enjoyed a thoroughly entertaining and eye-opening day at QinetiQ in Malvern. This cross-curricular event covered Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), allowing pupils to test their teamwork, practical and academic skills whilst competing to solve various STEM-based conundrums. These challenges were based on the problem-solving and logic skills vital to QinetiQ’s activities in the Security and Defence industries.

QinetiQ is a multinational defence technology company headquartered in Farnborough, Hampshire. It operates primarily in the defence, security and critical national infrastructure markets and runs testing and evaluation capabilities for air, land, sea, and target systems.

After an exciting competition with five other regional independent and state schools, including Hanley Castle, Bishop Perowne, Dyson Perrins, Bromsgrove and Malvern College, our RGS team were delighted to achieve first place. It was a joy to see their great problem-solving, speed, creativity and teamwork being rewarded.

Our team particularly enjoyed deciphering messages from an ‘evil AI’ to prevent the destruction of Earth, working out the tricks to navigate a Lego vehicle carrying an ‘Angry Bird’ around a course before launching it towards its final destination, and being able to use the latest augmented virtual reality headsets and to see how QinetiQ are using augmented reality to solve real-world problems, especially as this allowed us to play with sand! One of the most valuable parts of the day was meeting current and past apprentices and graduates working at QinetiQ which enabled our pupils to gain an insight into professional careers in cyber security and defence and also understand the different routes and experiences of young people working in these teams.

Mrs Deborah Gold, Teacher of Physics and STEAM Co-ordinator