KIOSC

KIOSC YEAR 8

This week saw the Year 8 students go to KIOSC for a day of sustainable town planning.  The students met the teachers at Swinburne University Campus and from there decided whether they would like to be a town planner, scientist or an engineer.  Each of the three groups had specific tasks to do with the vision of designing a town: Knoxbridge.

The town planners had the job of designing the town, the students needed to ensure that the town had all of the requirements of a town, school, utilities, parks etc and the placement of these in the town.

The scientists needed to design experiments to investigate the best building materials to use, focussing on windows, roofing materials and insulation.  Other science groups needed to research the best conditions for the parks, water quality and how to create a habitat for a local endangered frog species.

The last group created robots and the required technology infrastructure such as lighting.  These were made using the lego Mindstorm kits, and needed problem solving and programming skills to make the units react to various stimuli like lights and sound, as well as traverse around the town to complete set tasks.

All of the design needed to adhere to the 4 pillars of sustainability: Social, Environment, Cultural and Economic factors.

Overall the students had a challenging day - choosing to cut short their recess and lunch