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Science and Engineering Challenge

Activities

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Full Day Activities

Engineering Game

Students are required to design and build a doll's chair for a 3Kg doll.

Catapult

This activity involves constructing a catapult from given materials and launching a squash ball. Points will be awarded for distance and accuracy.

The Great Tea Race *

The activity involves making hulls out of thin plastic and electrician's tape covered with lunch wrap to ensure they are watertight. These hulls are drawn through the water by a simple pulley and the time taken for the hulls to travel a set distance is recorded.

Escape from the Lost World

This activity involves making a frame onto which Helium filled balloons are attached. The motive power is supplied by pre wired motors and propellers, one to provide lift and two to give motive power. Once the craft is built it will need to flown around a course.

Gold Fever

This is a bridge activity that uses a test rig to deliver a dynamic load. The lightest bridge to hold the load wins

The World Sailing Spectacular*

Students make a suit of sails for a boat and sail it up the towing tank. A wind generator supplies air movement.

Mission to Mars

Students make a buggy on a suspension system. They pull the buggy over an undulating surface and are assessed on how steady their vehicle is.

Hover Frenzy

The students will be given a lift fan and two motorised propulsion units together with styrofoam, balsa, rubber strip and tape to construct a small hovercraft. Scoring will be based on several criteria: maneuverability, time through a course, and ability to negotiate obstacles. 

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Half Day Activites

Convoy: Hide and Seek

**New for 2008**
"Convoy: Hide and Seek" is ultimately a strategy game which brings two school teams together to compete against each by devising course, decoy and intercept routes. It involves extensive teamwork and communication, as teams maneuver small model boats around an outdoor playing field.

A scaled-down version of the game can be run indoors in the event of wet weather.

Who gets the Water

**New for 2008**
Australia is in the middle of the worst drought on record and your team is charged with developing a new, cutting edge way of reticulating water around the nation.

Student teams will need to design the connection of calibrated containers, hoses, valves, T joiners and manifolds so as to deliver water at a pre-determined rate from upper reservoirs to the lower target containers.

Future Power

In this activity students must assume responsibility for the management of power supply and distribution across a city. Using a combination of coal-fired, nuclear, gas, hydro, solar and wind power the teams must meet the demands of a variety of users, both domestic and industrial. With each of the stations having differing "sweet spots" in terms of power supply, students must mix and match to find the best solution.

Job Juggle

Job Juggle is all about project management. Students are cast as high-flying record executives who must ensure the successful production of five new albums. To do this, they must schedule time for recording the singer and band, CD cover art design, a marketing campaign and production of the CD. None of the required jobs for each album can overlap, so students must minimise their slack time to ensure they produce the most profitable albums.

Babe: Home Sheep Home!

Home Sheep Home pits students, their sheepdogs and their sheep-herding pig against foxes, thorns and other obstacles to get their sheep home safely as quickly as possible. To achieve the highest possible score, students will have to work together as a team, deciding on where to direct their sheep dogs, where to use the powerful sheep pig and whether or not to save all the sheep.

Virtual Maze**

Two groups will be combined for this activity. Students face a checkered floor 8 by 8 and the supervisor has a random secret maze that the team has to solve.

Leprechaun Cannon

This is a fascinating use of a smoke ring generator. Essentially a column of air is compressed and released through an orifice. This air then strikes a target.

Crypto Cracking Cronies

This activity involves students experimenting with codes used in protecting data that is transferred electronically.

On a Wing and Prayer

Students use sheet styrene foam, paper and balsa to make a glider that is launched by hand.

Confounding Communications

Students are provided with some basic optical fibre communication devices and must develop a means of accurately transmitting two types of messages. Students will be assessed on the accuracy and speed of their communication.

Heli Rescue

Students will be required to build a fixed arm helicopter given some standard materials and equipment. They will need to consider damping the travel of the heli arm both vertically and horizontally and determining the sensitivity of the pivot which makes the heli able to travel forwards and backwards. Students will then be required to complete a number of rescue related tasks.

ElectraCITY

Students will be given a board with which they can simulate power distribution. Students will be provided with different quality cables and are required to make all loads operate. Students are assessed on the cost of their network, and how many loads are shed due to the failure of a power source.

Back to the Future

Students are provided with a vehicle on which they attach a propeller or fan to drive the vehicle along rails. The students develop their own fan and can experiment with diameter and pitch. The vehicles are timed over a set distance and bonus points are available for accuracy and control.

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