EPro8 Success: 

Deputy Principal Teresa Hannard brought an awesome new dimension to our teaching and learning programme at Western Heights. She introduced our children to the EPro8 technology competition.

We started with just one kit - they are very expensive - and involved a small group of technologically-talented children. 

In saying that, really it is about so much more than technological talent. To be successful children need to be highly motivated, able to persist and maintain focus over a long and challenging period of time, able to collaborate and communicate as a team, able to think creatively and often outside the box, able to listen to the ideas of others and critically analyse them, able to share their own ideas in a clear and confident yet also humble way, able to problem-solve and ask good questions, able to iterate until the best solution is found.

We now have eight kits and hosts of children engaging with the programme under Teresa's guidance.

The EPro8 Challenge is an inter-school science and engineering competition.  Every year over 25,000 students from throughout New Zealand take part.

Students participate in a series of events: firstly within their school and then inter-school.  

These events are designed to promote science, engineering and problem-solving.

The EPro8 Challenge starts with an internal event that teachers run within their own school.  

EPro8 Inter-School Events

The top teams from each internal event qualify for the inter-school heats.  Each heat will have twelve teams from schools throughout their region complete a variety of science and engineering-based challenges.  The top teams qualify for the regional grand final.

Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Waikato/Bay of Plenty also have a semifinal round.

Teams of four students  compete for the title of their region's EPro8 Challenge Champion.

We sent two teams to the regional inter-school event held at Blockhouse Bay Intermediate School.

Teresa's report:

I was super proud of our teams today! There were only 10 points in it from 1st to 4th place.

Ryan, Braxtyn, Max, and Debby - placed second. They finished their build and started a new build, and they are in the next round of comps.

The team of Savio, Mikael, Cooper, and Joseph placed 4th but will be the 'wild card team' because of the fact that they completely finished a very difficult build.  

Both teams were amazing, and I am super proud of their commitment. Two and a half hours of building with no break.  Their determination and ability to work together and stay strong was very commendable.

Photos from our in-school competition below: