EPro8 is an engineering competition held across New Zealand. The teams have 2.5 hours to complete as many challenges as they can.

At the start of Term 2, five teams entered the heats and one team made it to the grand final. All teams exhibited tenacity and resilience as they ploughed through the various tasks.

Despite not being in the top three during the heats, these teams made a tremendous effort and produced some truly phenomenal pieces of engineering under immense pressure.

Team Five Eighths X

Daniel Howie, Daniel Lough, Shivam Shankar and Erin Yamada made it to the grand final and came in 9th out of 48 teams in Canterbury.

Shivam's recollection:

To get to the grand final, we had to make it through the regional heats. In each heat, 12 teams face off and the top 3 teams are invited to the finals. Here we came 2nd. Before the competition, our team met up numerous times to practise and make sure that we had the theoretical physical concepts we needed engrained into us.

The grand final competition was a nautical theme. We had 4 challenges to choose from, ranging from a waka, automated fishing Contiki, lighthouse, to a navigation sextant. Despite the difficulties we faced along the way, we managed to get most of the 2 challenges done coming in 9th. They were the fishing Contiki and lighthouse.

Through this event, we learnt many valuable skills in engineering both theoretical and practical. We were able to find creative solutions to solve an interesting variety of problems. Speaking for myself, I will never forget this experience and the valuable skills in theoretical engineering and problem solving that I have gained.

With the brand new gear we received here at Burnside High School, we look forward to mentoring the new teams for next year's competition. The experience we can share with the future teams will be advantageous in their EPro8 journey.