Tairua School's Tairua Tornadoes wins engineering competition

The Tairua Tornadoes are Tomas Alvarado, Ben Steinemann, Max van Doorn and Shanti Wilson. Photo / Alison Smith

Do you have a problem that needs an innovative solution? Tairua Tornadoes may be your guys.

The tornadoes are a group of 11-year-olds from Tairua School who took out the Waikato regional finals of a major school engineering competition.

The Epro8 Challenge is an inter-school science and engineering challenge and these boys won first overall in the whole Waikato region.

Unfortunately due to Covid-19, travel to a national final was not possible this year.

The four Year 6/7 students were Max van Doorn, Tomas Alvarado, Shanti Wilson and captain Ben Steinemann.

The EPro8 combines problem solving and teamwork and focuses on Year 7/8 students, however Max was lucky enough to take part as a Year 6.

"We got to fling toast around the room - it was fun," says Max.

Among the crazy challenges, the teams had to make toast pop out to reach a certain height.

They also had to build a toilet that was 50cm above the ground with a light that goes on when you sit down.

Another challenge they enjoyed was building an electric scooter.

Their first competition was in Thames and they won it. Their second round was in Hamilton and they came second - although the boys thought the judge got it wrong.

They then made it to the finals in Hamilton and cleaned up, bringing home the first place EPro8 trophy.

"It was nice to know we won the grand final of the whole Waikato," says Tomas.

They say they practised during class time at school to win.

The innovation continues at the school, with 'tinker time' in class which on Monday involved all students making mini electric cars out of motors and cardboard with teacher Catherine Browning.