“Chemsha bongo ……Engineering Challenges” 1st Update

“Chemsha bongo ……Engineering Challenges” Update

Location: St Johns High school.

Activity: Chemsha Bongo

Date: 18th September, 2007
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This was the first session of the “Chemsha Bongo” Engineering challenges. The session was at St Johns high School and was done with the forms three and four students.

The session was attended by seven Cosmos education volunteers, Bridgit Syombua, Vice president CEK, Evalyn Mwihia- Secretary CEK, Isaac Musyoka- Treasurer CEK, Benard Kariuki, Sylvia Indagasi, Caroline Muli and Kevin Kinyua.

We started off by introducing the “Chemsha Bongo” Engineering challenges as a session that encourages critical thinking and the power of team work. We then gave the schedule for the challenges for the whole semester and our team together with the students set the expectations for the each session and overall expectations.

Top on the list from the students was that they expected to learn new things and strengthen their team work ability. As cosmos education our expectations were that we hoped to empower the students to be able to think critically and learn to build on each others abilities.

After the brief introduction, we divided the students into four groups; we then started off with the first challenge, Towers of Hanoi which is a simple challenge that encourages the use of logic. In this challenge the students were given 3 pieces of paper all of different sizes which acted as the disks and 3 pencils which represented the towers. They were then to move all 3 disks from one tower to another, moving only one disk at a time and only placing a smaller disk on top of a larger one.
Each group then chose a representative to take on the challenge. The first group to complete successfully was then named the winner. In this first challenge there was a tie with 2 groups finishing at the same time. To find a winner, a fourth disk was added and the challenge repeated, this time Gor Mahia, one of the groups, emerged the winner

One of the volunteers explaining the rules of the 2nd challenge

The second challenge was a test of team work, the students were given a plastic cup filled with water and suspended by 6 strings tied to a rubber band placed around the cup. The students were only allowed to hold the string at the tip and they were to pour the water into a second cup placed inside a circle drawn on the floor. The cup holding the water was not to move out of the circle. The first team to complete the challenge with the least spills was declared the winner.

One of the groups attempting to empty the cup

The last brain teaser of the day was a mathematical problem which also employed critical thinking

The session was concluded with the winning team being announced and an analysis of the lessons for the day and a review of how best the students would have accomplished these challenges.
Analysis of the session with 2 of the students