This is Gravity is proud to share that within two school terms, the Gravity Sphero STEM initiative has reached over 500 children and young people in Bridgwater, delivered through Bridgwater United Community Trust. Weekly sessions are delivered in Woolavington, East Huntspill and the surrounding areas, across term time, afterschool clubs and various holiday camps.
Predominantly, the students reached are aged between 8-12 years old and are taught in class sizes of 10-12. This enables students to work individually and in pairs, providing a blended platform to use their own initiatives as well as team-building skills.
Everyone starts their Gravity Sphero journey in ‘Play mode’ to familiarise themselves with the robots and their abilities to understand basic instructions. Many master the basics quickly and keenly progress onto draw & block coding within ‘Sphero Edu mode’, where elements of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) dovetail.
Recent games include Bull Dog, football matches using tennis balls, practicing weight of passing and shooting and obstacle courses and mazes. Through play, the students are consistently developing key transferrable skills, they are gripped [EC2] and never want it to be packing up time.
Logan from Woolavington Primary school “This is the best club in the world”
Dan Rogers Bridgwater United Sports Trust Operations Manager said: “The Sphero programme has really developed our delivery giving the young people we work with a chance to learn about technology and coding in a fun, play environment. We are proud to be the first non-league club to use this technology and we can see the difference it is making to the young people we work with on a weekly basis. Sphero club is their favorite part of the week and it’s ours too!”
Gravity Director of Planning & Economic Development Claire Pearce said “The Gravity ambition is to stimulate innovation and test new ideas, therefore I warmly welcome the commitment of the Bridgwater United Sports Trust in partnering with us on the Gravity Sphero initiative. I am really excited to see the positive response from local children and hope it will inspire young people into careers in science, technology, and engineering at Gravity in the future.
