Blast-off brilliance for top young scientists in bottle rocket win

Researchers set five teams of students from Denbigh, Walton High and Sir Herbert Leon School a fun one-day mission to build a water-powered rocket when they visited Denbigh School recently.

Participating students used plastic bottles and craft materials to explore different rocket designs and carried out various experiments to improve their rocket’s launch mechanism and flight path.

All the teams impressed the judges with their enthusiasm but Denbigh’s team proved triumphant. The students’ problem-solving skills, design ability and presentation on how they engineered their rocket to fly secured their victory.

Professor of engaged research at the Open University Dr Richard Holliman said: “The students tackled the challenge well and, as they were given the freedom to create what they wanted with minimal instruction, they approached the tasks both positively and creatively.”

The competition is part of a larger collaboration between the Open University and the Denbigh School Teaching Alliance.

Denbigh School’s headteacher Andy Squires said: “This is the fifth year that Denbigh has hosted the competition and, although we were delighted to narrowly defeat one of the other teams, it was a very closely fought competition with two distance records broken this year.”