L5 and M5 at the University of Kent

Date: Tuesday 17 July 2012

M5 at the University of Kent

Tuesday 3^rd July – breaking news – M5 urged by Prime Minister to take on and defeat the evil SPECTRA and save the world.

“But that means working really hard during the final week of term!”

To the University of Kent, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, for a day of problem solving and clue finding, using different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, to take on and defeat the evil organisation intent on world domination – SPECTRA.

Working in teams of five, they had to build and program a microprocessor, search for clues in a blacked-out room using infra-red, drive a radio controlled car around a maze, decode a binary sequence and solve a code wheel before putting it all together just before lunch to generate their own unique four digit PIN required to deactivate SPECTRA’s computer.

Could they save the world?

And, in the best habit of T.V. quiz shows, we had to wait for the answer until after the (lunch) break.

Gathered in the lecture theatre and in their teams they were quizzed about their morning’s activities and fortunately some had been paying attention, knew the correct answers and team 005, Brindley Kinch, Luke Jones, Jeremy Downes, Daniel Simon-Hart and Jeffrey Pang were declared the saviours of mankind and SPECTRA’s headquarters were demolished in a fire ball!

It was all great fun and everyone got something from the day.

Lower fifth go ‘Totally Ballistic’

The ‘Totally Ballistics’ event at the Department of Engineering and Digital Arts at the University of Kent proved to be an interesting diversion for members of the L5 year group this week. Working in teams but, each adopting a specialist role, constructing a microprocessor unit, writing the computer control program or solving ballistics problems, their task was to launch a hockey ball from a ballista to hit a pre-determined target. In addition, the target was designed and built by two members of the year group and two teams were put together to produce short video diaries of the day.

The eventual winners were Max Shepley, Finn Hunt, Phillipa Bradley and Oliver Flood – congratulations!

JCH