Academic Excellence 

Bridge building competition results

Year 7-9 regroup 

Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions our Academic Excellence meetings needed to be put on hold for much of the term. However, with things getting back to some kind of normality I’m happy to say we can meet again. For the rest of Term 2, our Year 7 – 9 Academic Excellence students will meet every Thursday lunchtime. Our students are currently deciding whether we will compete in an Art competition or launch into a debate. Either way it’s great to have the group back together.

 

Bridge Building Competition

 

The SNC Bridge Building Competition began late last term but unfortunately got interrupted by COVID. The students were asked to build a strong and creative bridge, using recycled materials, that was large enough to span 65cm and weighed less than 800g. Last week we had the excitement of being able to finally test the strength of the bridges. The students did an awesome job. Some bridges that didn’t look sturdy still managed to hold huge weights. Other bridges looked strong and didn’t let us down. For the winning bridge, we actually ran out of weights!

 

Congratulations to the winner, Baljodh Uppal! His truss bridge weighed 726g and held a massive 74.3kg, and could have easily held a lot more. That’s a lot more than what Baljodh himself weighs. Amazing effort!

 

A special mention to Francis Nono, whose 353g colourful truss bridge held 36kg before shattering before our eyes. And to Chloe Perez, whose 722g simplistic arch design deceivingly held 45kg.

 

Well done also to Andre Flores, Sheryl Matchado, Theodore Ciungwanara, Zoelene Ontiveros, Edwin Manuel and Gyanbi Shrestha for your fantastic bridge building effort.

 

Australian Brain Bee Challenge

Congratulations to Christine Buluran and Josephine Wong for their participation in Round 1 of the Australia Brain Bee Challenge. Prior to the challenge, the students studied numerous facts about neuroscience. Unfortunately, the state finals, which the students were invited to, have been cancelled. Thank you, ladies, for all your effort.

 

Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 

Our Senior Maths Specialist students participated in the CAT competition at the start of the term. CAT competition is an online problem solving competition that seeks to identify a student’s computer programming potential. Congratulations to Mya Oppelaar for earning a Certificate of Credit.

Write4Fun Competition

A small group of students displayed their literary skills by participating in the Australia wide Write4Fun competition. They had to write either a short story or poem. We have recently been informed that Write4Fun has offered to publish Shania Cura’s entry in its one-off anthology The Inside Story, due to be released November this year. Congratulations Shania!

                                                                                                                       Mrs Lyndsey Cardenia 

                                                                                                  (Academic Excellence Co-ordinator)