Hero photograph
 
Photo by Ms Sullivan

Tournament of Minds - National Winners

Ms Sullivan —

St Bede's College Mathematics and Engineering Team take First Place in the National Competition at Victoria University

Tournament of Minds is a problem solving programme for teams of students from both primary and secondary years. They are required to solve demanding, open-ended challenges from one of the following disciplines:

  • Science Technology
  • Engineering Mathematics
  • Social Sciences
  • Language Literature

Tournament of Minds is an opportunity for students with a passion for learning and problem solving to demonstrate their skills and talents in an exciting, vibrant and public way.

Tournament of Minds is not only a worthwhile investment in the education of our youth, but is also an integral part of our collective future. This is a long term project which the students work on over two terms of the school year.

St Bede's College competed in the regional competition at St Andrew's College. We entered a team in the Secondary Engineering/Mathematics section. Students are given six weeks to prepare a solution to a long term problem. There is no correct answer and students are judged on their research, team work and creative approach to problem solving. The St Bede's College team were the only team in this division, but had to score high enough to compete at a national level. Their presentation was exceptional and as such won the award for Engineering/Mathematics and have been invited to attend the national competition on the 23rd September.

The national competition in Wellington, was tough. With getting off the plane at 7.45am and going as fast as our airport shuttle would allow us, we managed to get to Victoria University with minutes to spare. The students immediately went into lockdown for 3 hours and 10 minute to complete their 3 hour challenge in Mathematics and Engineering and a 10 minute spontaneous challenge. Their challenge was to create a model that would, through air propulsion, project a model person in the air and to land on a designated space, using only the props provided. They also had to create a dramatic presentation in order to present their model and their findings. The team said to me afterwards, that at the 2 hour mark, they were preparing to give up. They were finding it very difficult, but they managed to pull themselves together and create an outstanding model and a presentation that saw them take out First place in the National Competition, crowning them the National Winners in the Mathematics and Engineering Secondary division. At the end of a long and challenging day, we managed to find some time to look around Wellington, including Parliament on election day. 

A huge congratulations to Harrison Tyson, Lewis Meates, Andrew Lee, Seamus Lohrey, Steven Little, Owen Kirwan and Luke Morrison.