Maths Problem Solving

LEGO Beyblades

In an exciting development for our students and school, Mrs Darwall has joined forces with Mr Jellie to deliver our Maths Problem Solving classes this semester.  Mrs Darwall is an incredibly passionate mathematics teacher and has already captured our student’s engagement with our LEGO Beyblades competition and Olympic Basketball exploration.

Our LEGO Beyblades competition ran over two weeks and involved two challenges: a spinning time trial and a knockout battle. During our first session, in pairs, our students created and experimented with different sized Beyblades. They learned quickly about the importance of weight; distributing it equally and the effect that it had on the Beyblades spin rate and spin control.  Once the students had settled on a design, they had to draw a labelled diagram that they could follow in the next session to recreate their Beyblade.

The second session involved the students recreating their Beyblades from the diagrams and making some last-minute adjustments.  They then completed three time trials, recording their data and discussing the best way to release the Beyblade from the LEGO spinning mechanism.  After the time trials, the knockout battles began!  The excitement and energy of the students as they competed and cheered on their friends Beyblades was terrific.  There were so many different types of Beyblades, all unique in their size and weight.  While the knockout battles were fiercely contested, all the students competed in the right spirit and congratulated each other after a winner was decided.

Congratulations to all our winners and it has also been really special to see some of our students going home to continue to develop and build better LEGO Beyblades and bring them to school to share with their friends and teachers.

Mr Jellie