Three teams of students from Hastings Public School are in the final stages of preparing for the state final of Tournament of the Minds.
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The school has students competing in three different categories (STEM, the Arts and Social Sciences) with nearly 20 students heading to Sydney to compete on September 15.
William Svosari, Stephanie Dun and Georgia Cowell are three students who were part of the winning teams at the regional final at Coffs Harbour on August 31 and all are excited about heading to Sydney.
"I love Tournament of the Minds because it makes us think about a problem and work together in a team to find a solution," Georgia said.
"I am in the arts team and we have been working together so that everyone knows what their role in the team is so we can do our best.
"At the regional final we had to create an Australian version of the Wizard of Oz. We had Dame Edna, Steve Irwin and Steve Bradbury as main characters along with Dotti a farmer girl who is living in the drought."
For the regional finals the teams had six weeks to come up with a plan to answer the challenge they were given.
"For Coffs Harbour we had to come up with a solution to the challenge, build props and create a 10 minute play to incorporate or explain the challenge and how we went about it," Stephanie said.
"We weren't allowed to have any help from adults and we got bonus points if we used recyclable materials. I was in the STEM group and we had to build a machine to test DNA from five endangered species.
"We were proud to use mostly recyclable materials."
William said there will be a few differences between the regional final and the state final in Sydney.
"For the regional final we broke the six planning weeks into two thinking weeks, two creating weeks and two practicing and performing weeks," William said.
"But in Sydney we have a three hour challenge which is a mini version of the six week challenge as well as a spontaneous challenge where the judges will come and interrupt us during the long challenge.
"We have all been working at school and then in our teams after school and on the weekend to make sure we are ready and I think we all are."
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