25 Aug 2023
A team of 31 students participated in the State Finals of the Science and Engineering Challenge.
The Year 9 boys; Zach, Michael, Ivan and Aaron were drawn to design and build the bridge. At the state final, this includes a invited expert team, this year Civil Engineers from GHD Newcastle. After designing and making the lightest bridge, they still were able to let the Super Ingot pass but it fractured, so we couldn't see the effect of the Bridge Crusher. It still was able to take the prize and leave the civil engineers in their wake.
The rest of the team showed tenacity as they applied their creative and critical thinking to hands on design tasks, such as building gliders, a Mars rover, earthquake buildings or more thinking tasks, such as scheduling tasks, planning electricity and roads systems or designing and sending codes, that then had to be decoded. All participants should be proud of their achievements, with many positive comments about their attributes throughout the day by both the volunteer supervisors or professional engineers observing.
They showed great dexterity in thinking as with the random draw, all our teams ended up with tasks they hadn't done before, so had to think on their feet against teams that by the luck of the draw repeated their task from the regional championships.
Click here to see the gallery of photos.