Champion Bay Senior High School takes home first place at Mid West science and engineering challenge

Students from Champion Bay Senior High School placed first in the Mid West Science and Engineering Challenge put on by the University of Newcastle.

The challenge on Friday, hosted at Geraldton Christian College, involved 256 Year 9 and 10 students from GCC, Champion Bay Senior High School, Geraldton Senior High School, Geraldton Grammar and Nagle Catholic College.

Students participated in various activities that simulated careers as civil engineers, architects, geologists and geophysicists, computer scientists, software designers and aerospace engineers.

One activity required the students to make a bridge from lightweight materials, which would then need to have a weight bearing toy car drive across.

Depending on the load the bridge was able to hold, students would accrue points to their score which had been kept across all activities.

GCC student Larishia-Ann Lotter, 15, had to build a shelter that would bear weight.

“We didn’t have much faith in it, but it went a lot better than we were expecting it to.” she said.

“It held a lot more weight than I was thinking it would. We’re really happy with it”.

Geraldton Grammar School came third with 1069.69 points, Nagle Catholic College came second with 1178.77 points and Champion Bay Senior High School were in first place with 1234.04 points.

GCC science teacher Keith Roffman, who organised the event, was pleased with the results.

“We’re so proud of the kids, they’ve done really well and it’s great to see so much enthusiasm around science,” he said.

Fellow GCC science teacher Joshua Arundell pointed to Mr Roffman and said: “10 years ago, he took me to this challenge as my science teacher, and now here I am as a teacher at my old high school taking my class to the same challenge.”

Mr Roffman hopes that next year they are able to expand the challenge to more schools in the Mid West and continue the legacy.