Day 20 - Bonwatlou JSS

Today was a very sad day for the team as it was our final school visit of the trip! On our return to Francistown, we attended Bonwatlou Junior Secondary School to deliver our final set of workshops: Paper Straw Rockets and Life on Mars.

The aeronautical engineering rocket workshop is brilliant for all ages, introducing them to how rocket fins effect performance, how force and energy drive the rocket into space, and how the nose cone allows the aircraft to be aerodynamic. The students took all of this learning into consideration and had so much fun building their rockets. Some of them were so well designed that they flew high enough to get stuck in the roof beams of the school! Everyone raced against their peers and had a great laugh, whilst also taking the opportunity to ask us about engineering. We were able to share our experiences in our different disciplines and hopefully inspire some of the students to pursue engineering in their own futures.

Life on Mars was up next, and this workshop is a great way to get the students thinking outside of the box. Creating posters with solutions to making it possible for humans to live on Mars, there was all sorts of creative ideas. Our chosesn presentors bravely got up infront of their friends and spoke about their ideas. Some of these included special planted trees to avoid deforestation, lots of ways to battle extreme cold, automatic oxygen systems in homes and heaters. We were blown away by all of creativity shown by the students and loved seeing how imaginative they could be when faced with a big challenge.

After our workshops, it was time to drive back to Gaberone. Leaving our final school was a bittersweat moment for all of us. We are gutted to be finishing our journey here in Botswana, but at the same time, we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to be here. We are incredibly proud of the students and everything we have achieved along the way. It has been an unforgettable journey and we will leave Botswana having learned so much, and grown throughout our time here.