School News 

2016 Science and Engineering Challenge

On Tuesday 2 August, a group of 30 Year 10 and a couple Year 9 students ventured to John Pirie Secondary School in Port Pirie for the annual Science and Engineering Challenge. The Challenge is based in Newcastle, and is a nationwide program. It provides aspects of science and engineering not typically in a school environment. This program helps students look at potential career pathways within science. It was a fun and educational day. We were divided into groups of four, and participated in either two half-day activities, or one full-day endeavour.

Activities included constructing a catapult (which KMS dominated), designing and testing a mars rover, building a fully functional bionic hand, bridge building and electronic basics.

At the end of the day, each of the schools go head-to-head, to see which bridge can sustain the most weight. At this point, Kadina Memorial School was coming first. Half of the bridges could barely hold the first weight, whereas we could hold the third heaviest. It quickly became very exciting towards the end because we were drawing with St Marks in the amount of weights we could withstand. Our whole team was on the edge of their seats, as Jamestown’s bridge was only just able to hold the second heaviest weight. Originally, Jamestown was coming last, so despite the bridge challenge being worth the most points, we believed we would still be first, possibly drawing with St Marks. However, we were horribly wrong. Unfortunately we underestimated the significance of the bridge building challenge and were

overtaken by St Marks and Jamestown. We finished third.

Overall, it was a very beneficial and exciting day out. Thanks to Mr Hadges for organising our team, the Challenge coordinators, and John Pirie for hosting the event.

Report by Eric Metcalf, Year 10