Engineering related Learning Activities (ERLA) and Robotics

"Students learn by applying and by doing, and they learn beyond the classroom. They see for themselves how they can apply what they have learnt to the real world."

- Former Education Minister (Schools) Ng Chee Meng

(during a parliamentary speech in 2018)

In the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world we live in today, change is the only constant. To prepare our students to be future-ready, our Applied Learning Programme (ALP), also known as Aspiring Confident Engineers (ACE) @ BRPS, aims to develop creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills in our students.

In Semester One, our students got to take part in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activities which consist of Engineering-related Learning Activities (ERLA) and Robotics as shown in the table below.

Level	STEM Activities
Level	ERLA	Robotics
P2	Man’s Landing on the Moon	Let’s Move It!
P3	Designing a Maglev System (To be carried out in Term 3)	Let’s Cool It!
P4	Theme: Water Filtration	Let’s Recycle!
P5	Making a Solar Oven (To be carried out in Term 3)	Let’s Clean Up!

The STEM Activities required students to collaborate together in teams to solve real-world problems. During the process, students were given the platform to explore, investigate and ask questions as they analysed the problems that were given to them. Such a systems-thinking approach to problem-solving and decision-making not only help students develop their communication and social skills, but also build their self-confidence.

“I got to use the laboratory thermometer to measure temperature. From the hands-on experience, I understand how heat travels from a hotter to a cooler place.” -Naziha Binti Mohamad Nasir, 3 Sapphire

“I enjoyed the P5 Robotics session as it challenged me to think of how to design a robot out of Lego to clean up the beach. We had to do research on how we wanted our robot to reduce water pollution and prrogramme it with the use of an iPad to pick up trash. I felt that the project was very meaningful as beach pollution is a real-world issue faced by many countries!” -Reflection by Nguyen Minh Dat (Richie), 5 Sapphire