On Saturday the 2nd of September at ECU, Joondalup, seven AvÐÔ°® Junior School students competed in the Tournament of the Minds competition in which they were given the opportunity to solve an open-ended challenge that fosters creative, divergent thinking whilst developing collaborative enterprise, excellence and teamwork. These students were:

• Zaiyrah Renji-Mathew 

• Stella Lee 

• Nicolas Willey 

• Aston Meldrum  

• Harry Giles  

• Karthik Binu  

• Elena Sinagra  

This highly capable group of budding intellects chose the STEM challenge in which they were faced with the following conundrum. The Island of Tomadise, renowned for its beautiful birds, is facing catastrophe as the birds have inexplicably disappeared leaving the residents dismayed, bereaved and bereft of income. Team AvÐÔ°® had to come up with a hypothesis as to why the birds had disappeared, create a bird capable of performing two different flight manoeuvres, construct a launch pad on which to send the bird into the air and provide an ICT presentation based on the science behind their constructions. To set the bar even higher, this had to performed in the form of a ten-minute play with a six-week time frame to prepare for the challenge. Wow! 

The students’ performance on the day was no less than outstanding. 

The launching device of the bird and bird, named Elvis, was a something Michelangelo would be proud of. The scripts were beautifully read and the miming was meaningful and authentic.  

The judges clearly recognised this and out of 28 teams competing in the STEM challenge, AvÐÔ°® came fourth, a truly amazing achievement. 

The fact that everything the students did was created by them from scratch, the vast majority being done in their own time, is a testament to their dedication and ability to rise to the occasion. 

Ms de Groot and Mr Richmond could not be prouder of them!