TOM is a programme for students from primary to secondary school level in which teams are tasked with solving open-ended challenges.
The programme, which runs in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, sets challenges in four categories - the arts, language literature, social sciences and Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths).
The WIS team chose to take part in the arts, and for the regionals had six weeks to create a 10-minute performance based on a work by a famous artist.
However, at the nationals, teams were tasked with putting together another 10-minute production, but this time with only three hours to prepare.
The prompt this time was for the team to imagine living in a society where music doesn’t exist and they had just found a recorder.
“For three attempts, you have to figure out what it is, and then when you find out it plays music, you get inspired to create more instruments from the things around you,” Campbell Wilkins said.
The teams had no outside help with creating the show or all the sets and costumes for it.
“It’s a lot more intense because you just get shut in the room - three hours, no stopping,” Ethan Wells said.
They also had to undertake a spontaneous challenge at a random time during their preparation, though the WIS team members had a stroke of luck with theirs.
They were last to be given their challenge and, by the time the judges arrived, they had their main presentation already prepared.
The team was also last to present its main performance and sat waiting nervously, hoping nobody else had gone for their unique angle.
While other teams portrayed humans in a world where music doesn’t exist, WIS’ performance centred on aliens from a music-less society coming to a world where music did exist.
“I think the out-of-the-box thinking helped us,” Timothy said.
“Every performance, we were praying, ‘Don’t be aliens, don’t be aliens’,” Campbell said.
Team administrator Tracey Dent said she was incredibly proud of the students.
“They did such an amazing job against some quite steep competition.
“The looks on their faces when they found out they won were just priceless.”
The team’s preparation happened behind closed doors so Dent was only able to see the finished product, but she was blown away by what the students accomplished.
With national gold behind them, the team wants to raise funds to get to Melbourne for the grand finals on October 20-21.
“Obviously this is quite a costly trip to get ourselves to Melbourne, so any sponsorship would be gratefully received,” Dent said.
They were hoping for businesses and community members to sponsor the team.
“We’re hoping for big companies to sponsor us,” Ethan said.
Businesses interested in supporting the team should get in touch with the school’s office.
Other fundraising activities will be held in the month leading up to the finals.
Dent said the team was pretty confident going into it, but both the team members and she knew Melbourne would be a whole different situation as they were going up against the world.
“A whole lot of countries who take part in Tournament of Minds will be in Australia, so we’ll just have to see what happens on the day.”
The team members felt honoured to have been selected for the team in the first place, and now even more so to represent both WIS and New Zealand.
Finn Williams is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in early 2022 and regularly covers stories about business, events and emergencies. He also enjoys writing opinion columns on whatever interests him.
