FOUR students from Mary MacKillop Primary School will set off on an adventure soon after winning the regional Catholic schools inaugural Sustainable Engineering Challenge.
Hailee Pearce, Cooper Gartner, Joseph McCarthy and Henry Williams were one of 10 eager teams of Year 6/7 students from Mary MacKillop Memorial School, St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School and Tenison Woods College testing their creative skills as part of the regional Catholic schools initiative.
Hosted at Tenison’s Pam Ronan Centre, teams were required to construct a simple gearbox and wind turbine, using kits which contained gears, axles and blocks.
To turn the gears, participants also needed to create blades that could catch the wind – an experimental process for the groups.
A partnership with Vestas and Infigen Energy allowed Tenison to welcome delegates from both companies as not only challenge supporters, but also judges.
Vestas service technician and panel judge John Hutchison was impressed by the entries.
“The students really surprised me not only on how engaged they were during the challenge but also their fantastic ability to think outside of the box when it came to their rotor designs,” he said.
“Our goal was to have a fun time with this project and reveal to the students their learning in the classroom can be adapted to real world solutions and skills.
“I look forward to future interactions with the Students and to keep renewables and exciting ideas at the front of their young minds.”
The four winning Mary MacKillop students will now set off on all expenses paid overnight trip to Melbourne and will spend time visiting the Lyndhurst Vestas warehouse and training facility.
The Penola students will attend a special morning tea at Vesta’s head office and have the opportunity to tour the Vestas assembly and manufacturing facility in
Geelong.
With a combined interest in the mechanics, physics and development of the program, all students are looking forward to the trip.
