MORE than 250 Year 10 students from across the Central West came together for a meeting of the minds on Thursday as Bathurst’s Charles Sturt University campus hosted the Science and Engineering Challenge for the first time.
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The University of Newcastle has run the nationwide challenge for 17 years but links with regional partners to host local events.
The CSU School of Engineering is only in its second year and Professor of Engineering Euan Lindsay said it was a good fit to host a Central West round of the challenge.
He said the day was all about making a career in engineering a viable option for students.
“This competition encourages our brightest prospective brains in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to pit their abilities against themselves, the clock and each other in a series of challenging activities that run all day,” Professor Lindsay said.
“It encourages high school students to follow their STEM passions by providing real-world problems to hone their skills. We show them that STEM underpins our modern society.”
Challenge director Terry Burns from the University of Newcastle said participants worked on a range of exercises that simulated real-world problems.
Some teams were working on a challenge that required them to deliver the most cost-efficient electricity network by balancing cost and reliability factors while others were designing an artificial hand.
There was a bridge-building challenge, a catapult exercise, a public transport network activity and even a mission to Mars.
Dr Burns said the exercises were designed to get teams applying high-level STEM thinking without even realising it.
“The aim is that we want kids to consider a career in STEM because it is already being predicted that three-quarters of the jobs in the future will have a STEM focus,” he said.
“And students with STEM skills are already one-and-a-half times more likely to get a job than those without STEM and, I would say, they are getting very important jobs.”
Students from Bathurst High, Kelso High, St Stanislaus’ College, The Scots School, All Saints’ College, Blayney High, Orange Christian School, Canobolas High, Oberon High, Lithgow High, Orange High and James Sheahan Catholic High took part in Thursday’s challenge.
Volunteers from Rotary clubs across the Central West were on hand to help the event run smoothly.
Dubbo will play host to its own Science and Engineering Challenge for Western Plains schools next week.
State and national finals will be held later in the year.
