A group of technology minded students at Hastings Public School are riding high after taking out first place at the NSW Tournament of the Minds competition.
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After winning the regional final in Coffs Harbour at the end of August, the team of seven headed to Sydney on September 15 to compete against students from across the state and came out on top.
The school had students competing in three different categories STEM, the Arts and Social Sciences but only the STEM team has secured a place at the national final in Hobart.
Students Addison Lunn, Stephanie Dun, Jamie Knott, Frida Aaso, Drew de Silva, Tim Lawrance and Benjamin Grummitt say their trip to Hobart will be taking the competition to the next level.
For the regional finals, the teams had six weeks to come up with a plan to answer a challenge.
"At 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."
"But in Sydney it was a lot more intense than the Coffs Harbour regional final," Jamie said.
"The challenge we were given this time was to build a rocketship to travel through space without using fuel. We had to come up with a script and a model rocket to tell the story of the rocket travelling in space and we only had three hours from when we got the challenge."
The students had to use creativity and the science, engineering, mathematics and technology skills to complete the challenge before going in front of a panel of judges to present.
"My favourite part was working as a team," Tim said.
"I really enjoyed being up on stage and performing in front of people," Frida said.
"We all had our own roles and it was good to win."
The team will now head to Hobart in October to compete at the Australasian final.
"We are all really excited about going to Hobart and we are fundraising to help us all get there," Drew said.
"We have to stay as a team and not with our parents which will be fun. We also have a gofundme page and we will be raising money for us all to go to Hobart next month."
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