Science & Engineering

Science and Engineering Challenge at Deakin University – 24th June

Year 9 students from a range of tutor groups competed at Deakin University on Tuesday 24th June in the annual Science and Engineering Challenge.  Teams of 3-4 students attempted a range of challenges including flying balsawood planes, designing energy efficient wind turbines, finding effective fish trap designs, scheduling different jobs, making an Ecohouse and connecting up a town circuit board.  31 students participated throughout the day and had to work as a team, troubleshooting problems and demonstrating critical thinking skills. At the end of the day, we finished in 5th place behind St Leonards as the overall winners.  Parkdale had a win however, as our bridge building team won the overall prize for best bridge construction.  Congratulations to Declan Pitkin, Tom Ovenden, Luke Tempest and Mack Scherwinski on beating the other 7 schools in this difficult all-day challenge. Another stunning achievement was the best balsa plane flight for the whole day with over 17 metres by Alex Nechifor, Asa Rungen and Harvey Rasquido. This day is part of the Enhancement program at Parkdale, with students being selected to attend special events based on a range of data showing their higher ability level in Maths and Science. 

The photos here show a range of the different challenges during the day.