Volume 12

Some Year 9 and 10 students were given the opportunity to attend an excursion to Western Sydney University on 21 July in a round of the Science and Engineering Challenge, competing against nine other schools from Sydney and surrounds. 

The bus ride to Western Sydney University took about an hour, and the atmosphere was brimming with excitement and tension as each group discussed and planned out their strategies for tackling their STEM challenges.  

The intensity increased as we witnessed numerous other schools arrive but the atmosphere swiftly changed as everyone had a fantastic time socialising, conversing and getting to know each other.  

After all the schools arrived, we walked to one of the lecture theatres and the challenge commenced, starting with a welcome and an explanation of the instructions and rules. When "Rosebank" was said during the roll call, we all shouted with excitement making our presence known.  

Moments afterwards, everyone was at their assigned spots. My group participated in the “Helter Skelter Shelter” and "Job Juggle" challenges, respectively. They each had their unique difficulties, fun elements, and problems requiring intense critical and creative thinking. Both activities lasted approximately two hours, with a break in between where students could socialise further or more importantly, sample Western Sydney University's food at their cafeteria.  

We wrapped up the day by watching the stress testing of the "Bridge Building" challenge, where one team representing each school spent the whole day building a bridge. The bridges were assessed for stability, durability, function and efficiency by using a truck that slid across the bridge, with each successful pass more weight was added to the truck until the bridge failed, and to our delight sometimes catastrophically. With that, we all expressed our appreciation to the judges and all those involved and said our final goodbyes to the new friends we met.  

It was my first time competing in the Science and Engineering Challenge at Rosebank, and I strongly encourage others to give it a try.

Jonah Lee   
Year 10

Return to Mars  
One of the challenges included in the Science and Engineering Competition for my team was Return to Mars. This challenge required a group to work together to build a "rover" from various metal pieces, string, rubber bands and some wheels. It needed to successfully carry objects across a rough and increasingly bumpy surface. The weight and shape of the objects carried changed with each passing, making it more difficult for the rover to cross to the other side with each journey. Other requirements in this challenge included dragging the "rover" with the provided string and avoiding the base of the "rover" touching any rocky surface as it passed over. We had to position the attachment of the string not too high and not too low to ensure success. As you can see, this is a tough challenge.  

My team and I worked collaboratively and had a lot of fun experimenting with the bolts, screws, rubber bands, wheel formations and the rover’s suspension to figure out what worked well and what didn't work at all; overall it was a great practical physics and engineering learning experience.

Sierra Castagna  
Year 9

Flight  
During the ‘Flight’ module of the Science and Engineering Challenge we learned about how aircraft use lift to stay in  
the air. We worked to make a small glider from balsa wood, which we would test with divides that would launch our aircraft at specific speeds. These tests allowed us to get a better understanding of the way that the balance of our plane affected the way that it flew. While this activity helped us to understand the mechanics of flight it also helped us to understand the importance of teamwork in engineering projects. We allocated different people to different tasks, such as creating the fuselage, creating the wings and elevators, and finding a way to attach them together. The understanding of these concepts will surely be useful not only in our future careers but in our day to day life too.  

Lachlan Ledda  
Year 10

Helter Skelter Shelter  
Helter Skelter Shelter found my group and I creating two separate towers out of various materials to try and withstand certain amounts of weight and seismic activity. We worked as a team to try and create the most stable structure using straws, tape, paper and cardboard. This structure was then put to the test as weights were placed on top to test the strength of the tower. After the first test of weights, we created a second tower to correct the flaws in the first one. This second tower was tested in earthquake-like conditions by placing it on an erratically vibrating platform to see if it would remain standing. The activity was fun and a great experience for our group.

Fletcher Churchill  
Year 10

Bridge Building  
Throughout the day, my group and I set out to build a bridge that could withstand the weight of a rolling truck. This consisted of many different challenges compared to a normal bridge building competition. The structure of the bridge wasn’t as important as its ability to let the cart easily and quickly roll across. Numerous issues arose due to this, such as having to shorten the height of the bridge and compress it inwards in order to fit snugly on the ledge.

There was also the structural component to the challenge where a limited quantity of light and delicate materials were provided for construction. This made it very difficult to create a bridge that was able to withstand the increasing weights that were rolled across it. Overall, the task was incredibly complex but having such a challenge was very enjoyable.

Aryan Mirzan   
Year 10

ElectraCITY  
The ElectraCity was one of the challenging brain teasers set for my team of four. It required us to power a city in the most cost-efficient way given different situations. Each board had three different power stations. Each team had four different types of cables, short black, long black, short red and long red, which represented the cheapest to the most expensive way to transfer electrical current. Each end of the cable plugged into a variety of sockets to transfer electrical current from the power station to each building making one big series circuit. When each building was receiving enough power, the light above the building would turn on. It started off easy but became more challenging as the scenarios changed. It would start out as power to at least 25 buildings using all power stations but then it would become more challenging saying 'Power 25 buildings using only 2 power stations'. It was a challenging but fun experience to experience and I would recommend it for people who love problem solving.

William McNamara  
Year 9

Confounding Communications  
During the Science & Engineering challenge, my group (Vedant, Jay, Daniel, and I) were given an opportunity to participate in the activity known as Confounding Communications. This activity challenged us to send messages between the members of our group, using our own codes created from pulses of different coloured light. The main goal of the Confounding Communications activity was to send these messages accurately and efficiently from one pair of the group to the other. Although this activity was fun, it most definitely demanded a great deal of concentration, teamwork and creative thinking. Overall it was a great experience.

Sebastian Ulizzi  
Year 9

Stringways  
One of the activities my group participated in was Stringways, which proposed the challenge of connecting towns using a railway line, represented by string. This activity consisted of a series of scenarios that needed to be solved, getting harder with each new scenario. We were given two sets of string and a board with screws all over, representing the towns within an area. The challenges required us to use the string to go around the board and touch as many towns as possible with the least amount of string, the focus being the most efficient use of the string.

This meant we needed to use problem solving skills but manage our time as each scenario had certain parameters and more points available for efficiency and speed. Overall it was a really challenging but enjoyable activity.  

Emilie Srdic  
Year 10

Job Juggle  
One of the tasks my group participated in was the Job Juggle. This activity included sorting and rearranging coloured tiles on a six column board reflecting the analogy of sorting out your week and all the jobs that must be put into a schedule. The activity had a set of rules and guidelines such as the same colour from different columns can't be in the same row. We had to get through as many scenarios and rack up as many points as we could within the given timeframe. This activity was both fun and challenging - although it did mess with our heads a bit!

Xavier Gibbs   
Year 10

Da Vinci Decathlon  
 
On the 25 July, two teams of eight Rosebank College students from Years 7 and 8 travelled to Knox Grammar School in Wahroonga, to represent the College in the middle school division of the Da Vinci Decathlon. The Da Vinci Decathlon is an annual event which incorporates a series of 10 academic challenges that all relate to the theme of the year (Unity) and are inspired by the life and works of Leonardo Da Vinci.   

The 10 challenges include Engineering, Art and Poetry, Creative Producers (Drama), English, Mathematics, Code Breaking, Cartography, Science, Ideation and the Legacy Quiz (30-min quiz on general knowledge and Leonardo da Vinci’s life). The Year 7 team included Elizabeth A, Evan A, Jeremy D, Lily G, Olivia R, Sienna S, Sophie O, Kiera Y, with Charlotte A, as a substitute in case any of us were too unwell to attend. What follows is an account of our day.  

Arriving at Knox was a surreal experience. Hundreds of students from schools all over the state were pouring into the massive Great Hall of Knox Grammar School. We saw schools from as far north as Coffs Harbour and as far south as Young!  

As soon as the Opening Ceremony was over, the first session commenced. This was probably the most stressful moment of the day and we were all feeling nervous. The time limit definitely didn’t help! We were given an hour and a half to complete a series of four papers. We learnt how to divide up the work efficiently to finish all the papers and developed time management skills to meet all the different deadlines. We also learnt how to recognise our individual strengths and use that effectively to successfully complete the papers .

A small break later and the second session was underway. The rest of the day flew past and in a blink of an eye it was time for the awards ceremony. To our utter shock and delight, the Year 7 team from Rosebank won first place in the Legacy Quiz category. Ms McArthur told us that we are the first Rosebank College Team to win a division ever! Unfortunately, this didn’t mean we won overall but that is definitely a goal for next year! We had a wonderful and quite chaotic day but we worked as a team and learnt a ton!

Thank you to Ms Peters for accompanying us on the day and to Ms McArthur for organising the training sessions and the transport to and from Knox Grammar School.

Lily Germain and Sophie O’Driscoll  
Year 7  

During Term 2, four teams of eight students, studied and practiced for the 10 different challenges included in the Da Vinci Decathlon. Each week during PACE, a different teacher with skills and knowledge from one of the challenge areas, coached us. We studied all these topics in preparation for one fun, challenging and adventure packed day at Knox Grammar School. With over 150 schools packed into Knox Grammar School’s Great Hall, it was very crowded and noisy; a very different experience to last year when we all had to compete online. Along the rows of tables was our team of Year 8 and on the other side of the hall were the Year 7 students. In addition to the academic challenges, we had the competition for the best tablecloth design based on the key word for the day, Unity.  

It was an amazing day as a culmination of all the work we did in Term 2. It helped us forge new friendships, work on problem solving, academic collaboration, time management skills and a whole lot more. We all had so much fun and will definitely do it again next year.

Charlie Johnson  
Year 8  

On 26 July, a small group of students including myself, seven other Year 9 students, one Year 10 and seven Year 11 students attended Knox Grammar School to compete in the annual Da Vinci Decathlon. The traffic going to and from the venue was heavy, but the event itself completely made up for it. The day was split into two sessions, with Session 1 containing papers on Cartography, Science, English and Art & Poetry and Session 2 containing Code Breaking, Mathematics, Ideation, Engineering and Creative Producers (drama). The day concluded with the fast and furious Legacy Challenge, a multiple-choice quiz. As dreadful as it sounds doing so many test papers in one short day, it was a surprisingly fun event. The papers weren't done in test conditions as teamwork is essential in this setting.  

This is mostly because the challenges are extremely difficult, with some definitely set at university level, but overall it was a great experience. Academically, we did not win any awards but we won an award for being the most humorous, energetic and engaged table. The Da Vinci Decathlon is something I would definitely recommend you try out with your friends, I for one will definitely be doing it next year!

Justin Nguyen  
Year 9 

Upon entering the senior competition hall at Knox College, it was astounding to see over 60 tables set up neatly for teams of eight students from schools all across New South Wales. In Year 7 some of us had the opportunity to participate face-to-face but every other year until now has been completed online. Apart from other independent schools, there were also selective, public and Catholic systemic high schools in attendance. There were even schools from as far away as Dubbo, Young and Port Macquarie! There were some familiar faces amongst the students, and it was a great opportunity to catch up with a friendly face or to meet new like-minded peers, despite the competitive atmosphere.  

The practical aspects of the day proved to be one of the highlights. In the Engineering Challenge, our team built a ‘carnival ride’ from a kit of stationery supplies that involved bouncing a table-tennis ball across two areas. For the Art and Poetry Challenge, we were tasked with creating a collage incorporating a poem. The winning entry was a three-dimensional model of a tree with the poem entangled in the roots. Another highlight of the day was towards the end and seeing who won each of the challenges. The atmosphere lifted even further at that point!  

Overall, the Da Vinci Decathlon was a great experience to challenge ourselves academically whilst also collaborating, building our communication skills and meeting new people. Everyone learned so much from the day, and it is most definitely a rewarding experience that would be a shame to miss!

Grace Lin   
Year 11

Ms Cheryl McArthur

cmcarthur@rosebank.nsw.edu.au

Gifted Education and iThink Teacher, EnrichED Program Facilitator

Our Year 10 squad (Ruby Calov, Ben Gilligan, Benjamin Hu, Aryan Mirzan) were coached by past students Coach Stephanie Ius and Assistant Coach Rania Sayed and our Year 12 squad (Lola Arnold, Josephine Frisina, Jasmine Gilligan, Gabriel Giuntoli) had the guidance of Coach Ms Michelle Khoury and Assistant Coach George Youloundas.  

Both teams would like to thank the many students, staff and parents who came to support them at CBHS Lewisham.

All of our debaters have contributed to another fantastic season and we remind all students that if they would like to be a part of this success in 2024, the Debating trials should take place towards the end of Term One so please keep reading the daily notices.

1st Naomi S 
2nd Charli H 
3rd Giana P 
Special mention: Alexis S