This week, year 5 were on a mission. A mission to design, build and launch a moon buggy to collect rock samples from the moon. We spent the week investigating, measuring accurately, creating scaled drawings and exploded diagrams of our designs. We then moved on to the building stage, where the groups carefully used the tools to saw and glue their moon buggies, as well as attach their electrical circuits to allow their buggies to move independently.

Testing followed, which let the children tweak their designs and fix any technical issues before the main mission began- collecting the moon rock samples. We used different chocolate bars to represent different rock types and the children learnt about core samples and why we use them. The sample collecting was enjoyed by all, although there were groans of sadness at not being able to taste the samples.

The groups were fantastic, each creating a working model and working well as a team. The joy and excitement from all of them was a sight to behold. A highlight was hearing the different discussions happening in their  groups as they figured out the best way to make their buggies, how to fix any issues and the general discussions relating their moon buggy back to our space topic. Great work all of year 5!!