ST NORBERT NEWS

Academic Excellence

Tournament of Minds

STEM, literature challenges

Students in the Academic Excellence program put in a tremendous amount of effort participating in the Tournament of Minds (TOM) competition this term. The four teams had six weeks to work on their solution to a challenge. Two teams chose to attempt the STEM challenge, where they built objects that helped them communicate with other lifeforms. They also had to research rockets and the International Space Station. The other two teams focussed on their Language Literature challenge. For this they were required to re-write a classic fairy tale and organise promotional material for it, including theme songs, posters, advertisements, etc. The students presented their solutions to the challenges to a group of judges at Edith Cowan, Joondalup on Saturday 28 August. It was a great day.

 

One of the two STEM teams, S.I.A (Space Investigation Agency), earned a spot in the finals. On Saturday 11 August the students spent a full day back at Edith Cowan. They were given 3hr to find a solution to a new challenge. The challenge being to build a tool that could mine a newly found element in the Earth and determine what the element could be used for. Our team was the only team to get it to work effectively. The students also had to compete in a spontaneous challenge. In the afternoon the teams presented their solutions to the judges and then nervously awaited the results. They did really well to make it to the top 3 high schools in the state. Fantastic effort!

 

Thank you to Mrs Miranda and Miss MaGee for taking on being facilitators for the teams and their many hours of guiding the students to do their best.

 

Shooting Stars –

  • Emmeline Adiguna
  • Ann Baiju
  • Catherine Gabriel
  • Pratishtha Mayank
  • Emma Nguyen
  • Marwin Pacopac
  • Melvin Sayula

The Creative Crew -

  • Peter Sean Alfonso
  • Levin Binoy
  • Akash Chandrukcannan
  • Brian Echeta
  • Brian Le
  • Chace Rosevear
  • Senuk Warnapala

To Infinity and Beyond -

  • Dave Dhall
  • Elijah Dimalanta
  • Andre Flores
  • Josh Navarro
  • Francis Nono
  • Baljodh Uppal
  • Sachin  Wijesinghe

S.I.A. (Space Investigation Agency) - 

  • Claire Decena
  • Sheryl Matchado
  • Gemma  Emmerson
  • Chloe Perez
  • Gyanbi Shrestha
  • Liya Sony
  • Kolinne Tang

 

Tournament of Minds was an exhilarating experience. The Language Literature team, the “Shooting Stars”, consisted of Ann, Emma, Catherine, Melvin, Marwin, Pratishtha and myself. We had an exciting challenge as we had to change a classic story to something different but still had resemblance to the original story. We chose Aladdin but we chose a space theme to the story. Over many weeks, the Shooting Stars had many meetings, agreements, and decisions about the story. We even composed a song. All in all, we all enjoyed TOM and would do it again if we wanted. 

                                             Emmeline Adiguna

 

I had a great time participating in the Tournament of Minds. In addition to being interesting and fun, this course has taught me a lot. Among these skills I have learned, and will continue to use throughout my life, are leadership skills which were taught to me by great teachers who told me and my team what we needed to do to succeed not just at the tournament, but also in real life. We spent every Tuesday working on our presentation prior to it. Setting expectations without being bossy was the biggest challenge in this project, and that is what I found the most challenging. However, I did ask my group to keep track of what we were doing, and this enabled our group to be efficient despite my lack of control. When the big day came, we evaluated the work we had done, and I was proud that my team was so good.

Dave Dhall

 

Our experience of Tournament of Minds was one we’d never forget. TOM was a great opportunity for us to try new things and learn to work together as a team. Despite the many obstacles we faced, everyone gave their best go. TOM pushed us to think outside the box and find creative solutions, which we all did. With the supervision of Mrs Cardenia, Mrs Miranda and Mrs MaGee, all teams strived their best to accomplish the various challenges. Although we faced a few problems, we all managed to get back up. Out of the four teams from SNC, the talented S.I.A. team had made it to the finals. Even though our team ‘Shooting Stars’ didn’t make it to the finals, we still have many more opportunities ahead of us in the years to come. I’m sure that we all enjoyed our experience at TOM.

Ann Baiju

 

The six weeks that we took to prepare for TOM were very hectic, but we got there in the end. It was a fun time to gather all the materials needed and make the three items. We had some downs through the weeks, but we got through it and ended up going through to the finals. I had a really good time participating in TOM this year as the challenge was great to work on. All our team members cooperated meaning we had a great time together. Finally, I must thank Mrs. Miranda, our facilitator, for guiding us through our journey for TOM. 

Sheryl Matchado 

 

Mrs L Cardenia

(Academic Excellence Coordinator

Mathematics Teacher)