Budding Northland female engineers take top spots in Epro8 STEM challenge

Waipū Primary won the Year 5-6 final at the Northpower EPro8 Challenge.

Two all-girl engineering teams have been crowned Northpower EPro8 Challenge champions for 2021.

In the first of two exciting finals at Whangārei Intermediate School, a Kamo Intermediate team performed impressively to win the Year 7-8 final and Waipū Primary the Year 5-6 final with a 50 point winning margin for designing and building a yacht.

Waipū's all-girl team of Ava Mewett, Daisy Winters, Harper Scrymgeour and Paige Tomes were supported by Deputy Principal Jordan McDonald who aptly shouted them lunch at McDonald's following the win.

"They had asked for McDonald's the previous week after they won the heat and I told them not until they had won the final. They did really well," McDonald said.

The popular STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) competition has been the biggest in Northland yet with hundreds of students making up 77 teams from 26 Northland schools over two weeks of heats and finals.

Andre Thiele, the Northland EPro8 event organiser, was thrilled at the growing success of the Northland event.

"What I love in Northland is that there is such a positive vibe from the students, teachers and parents. And now we have Northland secondary schools wanting to get involved in 2022 so we look forward to being back in Dargaville and Whangārei for the next Northpower EPro8 Challenge," Thiele said.

Northpower Network General Manager Josie Boyd said the 2021 events were particularly special.

"We had over 300 students take part this year so it is our biggest event yet and to see the excitement on their faces is awesome," Boyd said.

"They challenged themselves, worked well together, had a lot of fun and learned lots. We look forward to making the 2022 Northpower EPro8 challenge even bigger and better to inspire more students to continue studying Science, Mathematics, Science and Technology, which can lead on to a range of exciting career options."

In the Year 7-8 Northpower EPro8 Challenge final, Kamo Intermediate's "Kamo Thinkersplus" team came first, Whangārei Intermediate's "Brown Kiwis" came second and Kamo Intermediate's "Kamo Tribe" was third.

In the year 5-6 Northpower EPro8 Challenge Final, Waipū School's "4-Wheel" sailed home in first, Parua Bay School's "Jimbob Tribe" were second and "Team Omega" from Tautoro School were third.

The EPro8 Challenge is the inter-school science and engineering competition. Every year over 10,000 students from 800 schools from throughout New Zealand take part.

Students take part in a series of competitions and events designed to promote science and engineering.

Events are run for year 5-6, year 7-8 and year 9-10 age groups.

Teams of four students compete for the title of their region's EPro8 Challenge Champion.