YOUNGSTERS at an Ivybridge primary school have come up with ingenious ways to use paper to make a rope suitable for use in the Amazon rainforest.

Continuing their work on the vast South American jungle, Year 3 children at Stowford School were challenged to design and make a rope for the Yanomami tribe.

The STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths - project asked pupils to think about how the tribe might use a rope, and what properties it should have. They decided the most important were that it should be light, flexible and strong.

Looking at how rope and string were constructed, they found that several strands of fibre were combined. After that, each group designed a rope and worked together to make it.

A Year 5 class was asked to put the ropes to the test with Mr Nute, who is one of the teachers responsible for STEM, choosing an overall winner from the designs that passed the trials.

Year 3 teacher Anne Burns said: ’It has been a fascinating project for the children and they came up with some really ingenious ways of combining the paper to give it strength.

’Only three of the prototypes failed to support 500g in the strength test and all of the designs passed the flexibility and weight test. The children had to think really creatively and cooperate well to solve the challenge, and it was a great way to end a topic that has really engaged the children.’