A new design and technology competition for UK primary schools has been launched by BBC Teach.
Get children buzzing with ideas and learning about design and technology, while helping the mighty Gladiators achieve their next level of performance and skill. There are great prizes to be won for your school too.
The challenge
The Gladiators have teamed up with the BBC micro:bit team and have set a challenge for school children aged 7 to 11 to design the next generation of fitness gadgets for them.
How can the Gladiators measure and improve their amazing skills of power and performance, using new gadgets based around the versatile BBC micro:bit? Harness the combined power of the Gladiators and theBBC micro:bit together to help the Gladiators become faster, stronger and truly unstoppable!
Free resources for teachers
As part of the BBC micro:bit – the next gen campaign, 700,000 BBC micro:bits were distributed to more than 20,000 UK primary schools, with the aim of helping children learn vital computing and digital creativity skills. You might already be using your BBC micro:bits in your school. Perhaps you are looking for a way to build them into your design and technology or computing offering?
This is a design and technology focused competition based around creativity, innovation and teamwork – no coding is necessary.
Free teaching resources are available on the BBC micro:bit website to help kick-start your team of inventors to enter the competition. These include:
* An action packed 30-minute Live Lesson – Gladiators Phantom and Dynamite worked alongside two teams of school children to design and test two new performance gadget ideas.
* A fun four-minute video of Phantom and Mwaksy developing their own gadget design ideas together and describing their design process.
* An inventor workshop – consisting of three UK curriculum linked pre-planned lessons: features of the BBC micro:bit; identifying a problem to solve; and how to design as a team, including ready to use worksheets.
The Competition
The Gladiators BBC micro:bit competition opened on 15 October 2024, and competition entries need to be submitted by 6 December 2024. The submission process is easy to complete from a single web-based form, consisting of a diagram and 100-300 words that show and describe your class’s gadget. You can submit up to three entries per school.
A team of judges will review all competition entries and select a winning entry plus three runners-up, which will be announced on 10 March 2025.
Schools could win a Gladiator visit, a £500 voucher for computing equipment and the winning team will also have their design turned into a prototype gadget!
Primary schools, are you ready? Three, two, one – go!
By David Whale – BBC micro:bit Expert and STEM Ambassador.
For more information about the Gladiators micro:bit competition, to watch the Live Lesson or to download the accompanying resources, please visit: www.bbc.co.uk/microbit
