"It moves! It really moves!" Technology competition gathers school-age inventors in Vantaa

print this

By Lauri Puintila
     
      What do you get if you connect a clockwork engine, some wire, paperboard, wood slats, and a piece of string? Well, for example a Ferris wheel that actually works.
      Simple. Even a fourth-grader can do it. The future of the Finnish technology industry is in safe hands!
      The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries organised a nationwide technology contest entitled Tämä toimii ! (”This Works!”) for pupils attending comprehensive schools across the country. Last Thursday, a regional contest was held in Vantaa, gathering inventive geniuses from all over the country.
     
The number of contestants is 21,500, and the competition has two categories, A for 1st to 3rd grade pupils and B for 4th to 6th grade students.
      In the B category, the winners of the regional contest were a group of fourth-graders from the Jokivarsi School in Vantaa with their Ferris wheel. Their invention will take part in the final competition to be held at the Helsinki University of Technology in Espoo’s Otaniemi in April.
     
In January, the participating schools were sent a modest package of materials, of which only MacGyver would have been able to build a helicopter. Nonsense! This is kids' stuff!
      A group of fourth-graders in the Veromäki School in Vantaa had in fact managed to make a helicopter. With a functioning rotor, their copter actually looked like a real helicopter.
     
However, the head of the jury, Hanne Levävaara from the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, would have liked to see the chopper flying. Some people are just never satisfied.
      ”The copter is too heavy. The rotor blades should have been inclined downward in order that the copter could have achieved lift”, said fourth-grader Henri Mononen, while explaining that physical laws were keeping the chopper grounded.
      ”If we had made a bouncing bunny, it could have been able to jump”, Mononen continued.
      No doubt about it, the boy displayed a serious talent for inventions.
     
Computer games might not have numbed Finnish schoolchildren’s brain cells after all.
      A number of mobile gadgets were seen in the hall of Vantaa’s Vocational College Varia.
      In order to build such devices one sure needs some brain capacity.
      Fourthgrader Anton Vellikok floated his clockwork-driven riverboat in a bathtub. Another pupil had built a clockwork car which moved nicely on the floor.
     
”The aim of the competition is to boost interest in technology. At the same time we wish to promote some other types of teaching methods than have not been seen in schools so far”, said senior teacher Ari Ylinen, who had been responsible for organising the competition.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.3.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish upper secondary schools compete for students by offering special courses (19.3.2008)
  The Finns are an inventive bunch (4.9.2007)

Links:
  The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries
  Tämä toimii ! 2008-2009 (in Finnish)

LAURI PUINTILA / Helsingin Sanomat
lauri.puintila@hs.fi