Secondary project briefs (ages 11+)

Bronze Awards are typically completed by students aged 11+. They complete a ten-hour project which is a perfect introduction to STEM project work. Over the course of the project, teams of students design their own investigation, record their findings, and reflect on their learnings. This process gives students a taste of what it is like to be a scientist or engineer in the real-world.

Silver Awards are typically completed by students aged 14+ over thirty hours. Project work at Silver level is designed to stretch your students and enrich their STEM studies. Students direct the project, determining the project’s aim and how they will achieve it. They carry out the project, record and analyse their results and reflect on the project and their learnings. All Silver projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform.

Gold Awards are typically completed by students aged 16+ over seventy hours. Students’ projects are self-directed, longer term and immerse them in real research. At this level, we recommend students work with a mentor from their chosen STEM field of study. All Gold projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform. There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.

There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.

Find out how to build practical CREST projects into secondary science lessons using our free teacher guidance pack. Supporting this guidance are easy-to-use, free-to-download mapping workbooks, which match individual Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST Award projects with each area of the secondary science curricula for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. You can download and save your own copy of the relevant mapping workbook via the following links:

To browse the briefs, click the buttons below or scroll down.

Bronze Silver Gold Partner resources

crestaward

Views

5 years ago

Flag

Design and build a disco light

This resource is published under an Attribution - non-commercial - no derivatives 4.0 International creative commons licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). For more information visit our Terms and Conditions (www.crestawards.org/terms-and-conditions).

Click to edit project

Click to edit project description

Design and build a disco light In this project, you will design and build your own model disco light. Getting Started How do the lights and sound at a nightclub coordinate together? The lights appear to flash in time to the beat and change colour with the pattern of the sound. How is the signal from a sound source such as a CD player or DJ deck converted into a pattern of lights? Choose your sound source (for example a CD player or DJ deck) and investigate the signal that comes from it using an oscilloscope. If the sound source has phono (RCA) output plugs, connect these to a SCART socket and investigate the signal that comes from each connection of the SCART. Measure the maximum voltage and current output from the sound source. What sort of lights can be run from these signal values? Connect one light up to the signal. What happens? Things to think about What happens when you put more than one light in series? What about when you put them in parallel? Does the frequency of the signal make a difference to how the lights work? Do they work best at low or high frequency? Useful Resources If the signal from the source is too small, it may need amplifying. Use an electronics or physics book to find out how to amplify electronic signals. Design and build an amplifier circuit if you need to. . Click to edit project description