The EPro8 Challenge is a school science and engineering competition. Every year over 25,000 students from throughout New Zealand take part. Students participate in a series of events: firstly within their school and then inter-school. These events are designed to promote science, engineering and problem solving.

During the past 2 weeks, students have worked in various teams to showcase their leadership and STEM thinking skills. They have built limousines, bridges, fishing rods and wishing wells using gears, axles, cogs, frames and pulleys. 

Teams were developed based on those who in the practise rounds had;

• Worked successfully, valued other people's ideas and communicated effectively as a team member.
• Showed analytical thinking and problem-solving under time pressure - thinking outside the box when required.
• Showed resilience, commitment and focus to accomplish the challenge.
• Demonstrated leadership when required.

It has been amazing to see the incredible 'out-of-the-box' thinking from so many students, as well as perseverance and resilience when things did not go according to plan. 

Many of these teams were mixed in order to have a range of skills to support the teams, including leadership, thinking, problem-solving, sharing ideas, communication, participation and contributing. 

We are pleased to announce from the Toroa Hub, the Pro8ers (Louie Bevan, Tanav Nakka, Hollyanne Triadis and Izzy Davies ) and the Marshland Cubers (Vishruth Uppalapati, Orion Spatcher, Issac Walsh and Henry Jiang) will be representing Marshland School in the inter-school competition on Monday 26 June. 

From the Korimako Hub, the two teams representing our kura Tuesday 27 June will be: Zoe Davies, Braxton Cook, Ruben Gibbs and Nate Mitchell from one team and Xanthe Cutts, Charlie Connolly, Asher Pine and Angus Morgan from the other team.

It was fantastic to see all teams display all of our school values during the school competition, especially ako when presented a challenging task and aumangea to keep going when things got tricky! We know that the teams representing the school will take these values into the inter-school competition and do us proud.

- Carolyn Davies and Luke Miller