The inter-school challenge begins
Students from 25 Northland schools will compete in the Northpower EPro8 Challenge, an inter-school science and engineering competition, over four days from Tuesday. Hosted by Whanga¯rei and Dargaville Intermediate schools, 70 teams of Year 5-8 students will undertake a range of engineering-based challenges, all vying for places in the Northland grand final the following week.
Details of this year’s challenges are a closely guarded secret, but in the past they have included building a Mars rover, constructing a crane, designing a party popper machine and calculating how many balloons it would take to make a friend float away, all designed to give students a fun and rewarding introduction to science and engineering.
Northpower’s general manager network, Josie Boyd, said the lines company was delighted to sponsor the Northland round of the Northpower EPro8 Challenge, enabling more schools to take part this year. The company saw the competition as a way of getting younger students engaged with science and technology in a fun environment, while also acquiring engineering and problem-solving skills.
Mrs Boyd hoped that those participating would have fun, and the experience would foster
"Schools are seeing just how important it is to have children involved in STEM, and the children can’t get enough of the event." Kelvin Thiele, Northpower EPro8 Challenge organiser
ongoing curiosity and passion for engineering and science.
The Northpower EPro8 Challenge is by organised by Wellington engineer Kelvin Thiele, who said seeing what teams achieved was rewarding.
“Schools are seeing just how important it is to have children involved in STEM, and the children can’t get enough of the event,” he said.
“I love it when you tell the teams what the challenges will be — half of them look excited and half look scared. But by the end of the event they have all achieved something very impressive.”
Each team would be based at a workstation with equipment designed and 3D-printed specifically for the event, taking the hard work out of construction and engineering so they could focus on solving problems, he said.