A week-long series of sessions and workshops were organised for the girls and boys aged from 7 – 11, starting off with talks on tablet and mobile phone technology from ARM’s Ian Smythe.
On Tuesday Dr Miller, an interventional radiologist, spoke about the heart, lungs and arteries. She performed mock angioplasty, biopsy, and chest drains on pupils, who then adopted the role of nurse and assisted her.
Mr Davis from Innovia Technology visited The Prep School on Wednesday to demonstrate how Science and Maths are used to solve a huge variety of problems, including the production of Arena swimwear worn by many Olympic medal winning swimmers. He set the pupils the challenge of designing automated windscreen wipers and a device to stop car doors opening onto objects.
The manufacturing process was also in the spotlight, with Dr Tim Minsall from the Institute for Manufacturing explaining how everything we see and use has to be made.
On Thursday Mr Morris from CSR wireless communications explained how a gyroscope works and is used in tablets, phones and controllers. He then wowed the children with a demonstration of Nike hyperdunk trainers connecting to an iPhone to calculate height of jump and steps per second.
Micro-organisms were the subject of Dr Cooke’s Friday and Tuesday sessions. Pupils used models to explain the different types, and a UV light was used to illustrate just why good handwashing is so important.
Dr Brierley finished off the week with a talk on the brain, asking ‘Do men really have bigger brains then women?’ While the answer is yes, the female pupils were pleased to find out that size does not necessarily correlate with intelligence! She also explained all the regions in the brain, setting tasks for the pupils to ascertain their dominant hemisphere.
Caroline Brown at The Perse Prep School said: “We are very fortunate to be based in a City that boasts some of the world’s leading science, health and technology companies. Arranging visits and workshops such as these really help to inspire our pupils and contributes to the ongoing popularity of sciences amongst pupils at The Perse Prep School, a trend which continues through their time at The Upper School. We are enormously grateful to all the visitors that made the week such a success and look forward to continue working with Cambridge businesses to help develop the next generation of scientists and innovators.”
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