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www.abingdon.org.uk 9 Institute of Engineering & Technology’s Faraday Challenge Four second years competed in the Challenge planning, designing and evaluating a new attraction for Thorpe Park, before presenting it to the other competitors. It had to appeal to all, not just thrill seekers. They decided on a rollercoaster, which could run at three different speeds to suit different people and built a 3-speed gear box to make it work. Studying the Stars The Physics department joined forces with the Abingdon Science Partnership’s GCSE Astronomy group for a Telescope Open Evening at the University of Oxford presented by post-graduates, post- doctoral engineers and astrophysicists. The skies were clear and the 20 pupils were able to view the Moon, the Pleiades star cluster, the white dwarf star Sirius and the planet Uranus. The students learnt about the structure of the universe and how to use spectroscopy to find out about the composition of stars, galaxies and the atmospheres of exo-planets. Big Physics Quiz Abingdon’s team of 12 students joined schools from across the UK at Birmingham University to answer questions on topics including thermodynamics, quantum physics and waves. The boys, who picked up a spot prize at the end of the third round, also enjoyed a tour of the campus and a lecture on particle physics. T.S. Eliot Prize Sixth form students travelled to the Southbank Centre to hear the ten poets shortlisted for the annual prize awarded for the best poetry collection in 2017. Students from Abingdon and St Helen’s spent a memorable evening at a Chinese restaurant in Oxford, practising Chinese and enjoying a quiz. Discussion was varied with students keen to hear about Chinese culture, history and current affairs. Model United Nations 25 boys attended a weekend conference at Magdalen College School with over 200 delegates from schools across the South East. The standard of debate and discussion was high, with topics including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, Cyberwarfare and the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement. The students came away with numerous awards and commendations in particular China who won the overall best delegation, an outstanding achievement. Later in the term at the Haileybury conference the boys were again very impressive with four distinguished delegate awards and a distinguished delegation award for Japan. MUN Chinese New Year Old Station House Third and fourth years have been very popular visitors to Old Station House residential home this term. They have run a wide selection of quizzes, memory games and rounds of dominoes. Abingdon News