Science and Engineering Challenge
In Term 3 2024, a cross-campus team of Year 9 and 10 students participated in the Science and Engineering Challenge run by Newcastle University and hosted at Latrobe University’s Sports Stadium.
The students were divided into eight groups, and each group worked together on a specific engineering-related challenge, such as building earthquake towers, sending messages through light communication, building stable bridge designs, designing and testing planes and designing Aboriginal fish traps, competing against students from other schools.
Our challenge was to build a bridge that would withstand a trolley passing over it with increasing weights. We started by planning what our bridge would look like, which took a long time. Our bridge was very lightweight, which gave us some extra points, but unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough because we didn’t reinforce it enough. Overall we came 3rd but we enjoyed the challenge and learning from our mistakes. It was inspiring to see so many of us working together on these challenges.
– Seb, Year 9
My group and I participated in the Wind Turbine activity, where we had to construct a wind turbine out of a set amount of recycled materials that produced the most rotations in 20 seconds. We enjoyed this activity the most, as it gave a strong sense of accomplishment, being able to create a wind turbine that could spin at all. The activity challenged our brains by encouraging us to always improve our turbine, by looking at the crafts of other groups from other schools, and expanding from them, whilst also being cautious of the amount of material we used. Our commitment and hard work proved successful as we managed to come first in our singular event, and first overall as a school in the Wind Turbine event.
– Anthony, Year 10
The Science and Engineering Challenge Day was a fun and exciting experience where we could learn new skills practically, meet new people and use strategic thinking to succeed.
– Lacey, Year 10
