Rollercoasters and pirate ships were the focus of a Rolls-Royce workshop at Derby Grammar School designed to inspire future engineers. Students in Year 9 took part in the Maths Through Science session with three graduates from Derby-based Rolls-Royce. The class was split into two groups with one team building their own rollercoaster before working out how high up the track the car needs to be released from to complete one loop. Students in the other team were given a model of a pirate ship, which had already been assembled, and were asked to find out what controls how long a pirate ship takes to complete an oscillation. Catherine Hocknell, R-R graduate engineer, led the session with nuclear controls graduate, Mark Northfield, and civil aerospace engineering graduate, James Roberts. Read More Your Good News Catherine said the aim was to engage students with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) by showing them how they can apply it to real-life situations. She said: “We ask the students to conduct different experiments with the equipment and the idea is so that they can see how Science works in the real world and in this case it’s by using a rollercoaster and a pirate…