On Thursday the 24th of May the EPro8 competition heats were held at Chisnallwood Intermediate. Twelve teams including two Cashmere Primary Te Pae Kereru teams competed for the top 5 spots.

Team 1: Noah Olette, Jack Armstrong, Maya Rix and Will Greenstreet.

Team A: Claudia Beal, Ethan Jackson, Toby Elliott and Justin Wood.

Each team were set up at an EPro8 station of equipment laid out across the Chisnallwood Hall. All of the teams were given an identical range of engineering tasks to choose from, each worth points ranging from 30 to 60. Before the competition began, the host, Kelvin, took the teams through a tutorial for tips and tricks on using all of the equipment.

The teams had two and half hours to complete as many tasks as they could in sequence. Once you had completed the task you had chosen, you had a buzzer that when you pressed it, the lights above your stand lit up and your team’s song played. The judge came over to your stand and judged whether the end result was good enough. If it was good enough, he would scan the task’s barcode and you would get the amount of points entitled to the task.

When the barcode was scanned everyone would feel really really good because we had always put lots of hard work into it. It was fun seeing the amount of points go up. When you were doing your tasks, a lot of feelings where shooting through your body, like excitement, nervousness, happiness and puzzlement.

In the last five minutes of competition, both teams started to push themselves to their limit. Team A was 10 points behind the two tied teams in 4th round. Team A were making a 1 metre long wand rotate in a full circle at least 7 times, Team 1 pressed the buzzer in the last minute to gain 30 points for making a fire truck ladder which put them a close 2nd.

CPTPK 1 got second which means they go to the next round. CPTPK A came a very close 5th but they didn't make it through. It was really an excellent day for everyone!