The 2021 yia! Awards evening was held on Thursday 28 October.

2021 saw twice as many student entries compared to all previous years, since Pāpāmoa College first started entering the Young Innovators Awards.

Students worked with teachers Mrs Lee, Ms Kent and Ms Vining, on Friday lunches throughout terms one and two, and in their own time, to produce some very creative entries. Two of our eight entries made it through to the Junior and Senior categories. 

Brooke Barry Y10, a finalist in the Junior section, used her experience of seeing young children go without raincoats around Pāpāmoa and realised punctured pool liners, that were being thrown away, could be easily repurposed to create dry, warm and colourful ponchos for young children. 

Rheet Farrar Y12, in the Senior section, was our second finalist. Her innovation is an app where teens enter their location and interests, the app then suggests matches from Counsellors with similar interests. A virtual or face to face meeting can be set up and the teen can choose whether to carry on seeing them or not. The app also tracks how the teen feels, negative feelings prompt a call from the Counsellor.

The eventual 2021 winners at the Awards Evening designed a funky cover for injections to stop young children from being afraid when being immunised, which won the Intermediate category. 

A tracker that attaches to fishing boats’ nets, lost nets can then be found and not left to harm sea life, won the Junior category. The Senior category was won by an app that makes NCEA progress easy to read for parents of Senior students.