SENIOR SCHOOL
Science and Engineering Challenge 2017
Students from the Year 9 and 10 STRIVE
Advanced Science classes competed in the
regional Science and Engineering Challenge
on Friday, 31 March at the Midland
Railway Workshops. During the day-long
competition, our students competed
against seven other schools from across
the Perth metropolitan area in a range of
activities related to the fields of science and
engineering.
Each school was divided into eight groups of
3 or 4 students and each group worked on
either one full-day activity or two half-day
activities. In the morning session, one of our
teams had to develop a code to quickly and
accurately send messages using coloured
pulses of light sent along an optic fibre,
whilst another built a simulated robotic hand
which was then tested to see if it could pick
up objects and communicate using sign
language. Other teams were challenged to
design and build earthquake-proof towers,
which then underwent static load testing
and seismic testing (that is, shaken as in an
earthquake), or to develop rail networks that
conveyed trains in the most efficient way. The
final half-day event was called ‘ElectraCity’
and required students to work out a
strategy to provide electricity to as much of
a simulated city’s infrastructure as possible
at the lowest possible cost. The Guildford
Grammar School teams excelled at the
‘ElectraCity’ event, scoring the two highest
scores out of all forty schools that competed
in the challenge during the week.
Three teams worked on the complex full-day
challenges. Guildford’s catapult team quickly
assembled a working catapult and then
refined their design throughout the day,
eventually winning the distance category by
hurling a projectile over 70 metres. A second
team built a suspension system for a simple
Mars buggy to allow a load to be safely
conveyed across a simulated, undulating
Martian surface. The day concluded with
the testing of bridges designed and built by
one team from each school. Each bridge was
tested to failure, in front of everyone present,
by running a trolley with ever increasing
weight across the deck of the bridge.
Our teams performed well in most of the
activities and, at the end of the competition,
Guildford Grammar School had the most
cumulative points and was declared the
Champion School. All of the students
who competed displayed a high level of
initiative, excellent problem-solving skills, and
outstanding teamwork.
Mr Gary Foster
Head of Science Faculty
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