As part of our learning adventure at Lyttelton Primary School, twelve students have the opportunity to enrich their learning outside the classroom by taking part in the Epro8 challenge. Epro8 stands for Engineer, Problem Solve and Innovate. Read Matai's article below to learn more.

Two Totara teams and one Raupo team went to the Epro8 challenge at Sumner School last week. The Totara teams came first and second which means that they both qualified for the next round, the semi-finals.

The Raupo team came fourth out of eleven in their heat which was a great effort.

Heats were held throughout New Zealand. The top teams from each heat qualified for the semifinals and a grand final. The winning team will be announced as Canterbury's EPro8 Challenge Champion.

At the start of the Epro8 challenge, the teams pick challenges from a booklet. The booklet has the criteria, points awarded and the description of the challenge. Then there are about five challenges to pick from for each team. Once you’ve done the first criteria there are more following up criteria. When teams have completed a challenge they push the "Big Red Button". They will be judged and the points will be added to the leaderboard.

Epro8 revolves around engineering, electronics and problem solving. The four teams with the most points get into the next round. One of our teams that participated in the Epro8 challenge came first (Matai, Ridley, Rowan and Gabriel) and the others came second (Orry, Tom, Ngaio and Alexander). So both Totara teams got to the semis on August 22nd at Kirkwood Intermediate.

Our booklet had a challenge called thunderstorm the first criteria was to make a 2.5 metre tall stable structure that the judge tested. Then we had to do the second challenge that was really mathy so Rowan and Ridley did most of it, so was the third but the fourth we had to create a pole on top of the tower that would turn, using motors which is a great example of some of the electronic challenges that my team did. Altogether teams are happy with how they did and the Totara teams are excited for the semi finals.