Engineering Challenge Sparks Interest in Stem

Engineering Challenge Sparks Interest in Stem

Team Bronze CREST Challenge at WelTec

Students from the Hutt Valley joined together on Friday to compete against each other in the inaugural CREST Challenge at WelTec’s School of Engineering. The secondary school students were set a challenge - to design a racing car solely powered by rubber bands and to race this car to victory against other competitors.

The racing was intense with students needing to apply problem-solving techniques over the course of the event. Vehicles needed fine-tuning and testing to achieve optimal race results and remain competitive.

The winner of the Best Car category was Finlay Georgeson of Raphael House Rudolph Steiner School whose vehicle travelled a remarkable 12 metres. Finlay impressed the judges with his vehicle design and application of physics and maths principles.

An all-girl team from St Orans won the Best Team category for their combined effort. They demonstrated great skills and overcame a number of challenges to perform well in the competition.

Dr Andrew Cleland, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand, the organisation that runs CREST throughout New Zealand, said the series of engineering challenges were designed to encourage young people to become “curious about science and technology”.

“Programmes such as this emphasise the value of partnerships with institutes of technology and polytechnics, schools and others. The CREST competition provides a variety of meaningful, hands-on experiences to secondary schools enabling students to think about engineering as a possible career choice.”

Graham Carson, WelTec’s Head of Engineering said, “It’s great that the Royal Society of New Zealand runs the CREST Challenges. The Challenges are a fantastic way of igniting excitement about engineering in young people. The opportunities are fantastic for trained engineers and those with a passion for the STEM subjects at school will go far and do well in their careers.

“Next year we plan to run the competition again at WelTec and invite more secondary schools to participate. Through these competitions students and their teachers become aware of the amazing opportunities for engineers,” says Mr Carson.

The CREST Challenge was supported by FutureinTech who provided ambassadors to mentor the secondary school students. The Hutt City Council also contributed to the Challenge as part of their focus on promoting Science and Technology in the Hutt Valley.

ENDS

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