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NZ Engineering Science Competition

Christian Alino —

On Saturday 4th August a team of four senior students competed in the New Zealand Engineering Science Competition.

Artemis Hingston, Jacob Harford, Karl Meyers and Olivia Silby were among the 200 teams competing around the country who had to answer the question “How many tonnes of CO2 emissions could be avoided in your lifetime if New Zealand transitions to a completely electric vehicle fleet?”. The team had from 9am to 6pm to complete the question and write a report up to 10 pages long. Team members share their thoughts on the day.

“Initially we had to define the question. What is a ‘lifetime’? What is a ‘vehicle’? Then we had to start finding the right information in order to get off our feet. The question was challenging, but completely open to interpretation, which meant we could be as creative as we wanted to in terms of calculations. Ultimately it was a fun day and an interesting challenge we all faced with enthusiasm.”  Olivia Silby

“Right from the start of the day, our team worked together extremely well. This let us begin to answer the question early on; leaving a lot of time to begin the report. By the end of the afternoon we had our own answer to the question, based on our own calculations and modelling. We will find out how well we went when the results are released later in the year, however I believe that the team did very well.”  Jacob Harford

“It was an awesome day, combining our skills as a team to come out with a final answer two hours before the end of the competition (also because we had to leave early that evening for our formal!). Under a lot of pressure from our short time limit for such an open question, we worked extremely efficiently as a team. Strong communication from our team leader Jacob, led to quite a relaxing, enjoyable day. In a few words: challenging, fun, and worth it! No matter the result, we are all proud of ourselves for a solid effort!”  Karl Meyers