Building bridges, only to have them busted, was the high point of the first day of the 2018 Science and Engineering Challenge on Thursday, May 3 at the Winning Post Function Centre at Taree Racecourse.
St Clare’s High School Taree took home the honours of having built the most structurally sound bridge.
The bridge, built by year 10 students Hayden Potts, Mitchell Brown, Lyall Last and Liam Pope, who are all STEM elective students, looked very different in design to the other bridges built by Gloucester, Taree, Chatham and Wingham High Schools, Great Lakes College and Manning Valley Anglican College.
The design was so strong it was only destroyed by Newcastle University’s ‘bridge buster’, a 10 kilogram weight, sitting atop the trolley travelling over the bridge.
When asked who was the brainchild behind the design, Hayden Potts said, “it was Mitchell and Popey who came up with the idea to bulid it in a flat vertical position.”
“We were cheeky at the beginning and told (the testers) just to go big straight away,” Hayden joked.
Other students from each of the seven high schools undertook different challenges such as building a catapult and supplying power to an ‘ElectraCITY’.
St Clare’s also took home the trophy for overall winners of the day – their first win in 15 years.
Aggregate scores from all activities were totalled with the results being:
- First – St Clare’s High School, 1097 points
- Second – Gloucester High School, 1018 points
- Third – Great Lakes College Forster Campus, 937 points
- Fourth – Wingham High School, 913 points
- Fifth – Chatham High School 856, points
- Sixth – Manning Valley Anglican College, 781 points
- Seventh – Taree High School, 709 points
The Challenge and Discovery Days continue next week for primary school students.
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Julia Driscoll
Julia Driscoll has worked as a journalist for the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Times for seven years. She values the deep connection with community that being a rural and regional journalist brings. Career highlights have involved environmental stories - bringing the plight of the little known endangered Manning River helmeted turtle to the attention of the public, resulting in wide-spread knowledge in the community and conservation action; and breaking the news of the Manning River ceasing to run for the first time in recorded history.
Julia Driscoll has worked as a journalist for the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Times for seven years. She values the deep connection with community that being a rural and regional journalist brings. Career highlights have involved environmental stories - bringing the plight of the little known endangered Manning River helmeted turtle to the attention of the public, resulting in wide-spread knowledge in the community and conservation action; and breaking the news of the Manning River ceasing to run for the first time in recorded history.
