Athena wins
Four girls from St Peters Girls High School took out the national ‘Subs in Schools’ engineering challenge hosted in Sydney last night. The national high school competition was devised and piloted in South Australia by local engineering companies, Re-Engineering Australia, and the State Government to help students actively engage with science, technology, engineering and maths.
Subs In Schools encourages students to work in teams to build a working model submarine that must perform a number of manoeuvres and meet set criteria.
Students learn buoyancy, mechanics and electronics through the program and are supported by easy-to-follow instructions and 3D CAD models. The program also involves project management and marketing skills.
“The underlying goal is to increase entrepreneurial skills and employability.” said Dr Michael Myers (OAM) Founder and Chairman of Reengineering Australia.
The girls Emily, Sophie, Fiona and Grace won the state finals in September last year with ‘Athena’, rounding out their year 10 studies.
“Athena outright won four out of the five individual categories and then the overall award for the National title of Subs In Schools,” said Andrew McCauley, Chairman of Judges for the national competition.
Mr McCauley, a project manager with Saab Australia, led the engineering team that created the national submarine build manual and also picked up an award for "Recognising Exceptional Leadership in STEM education in Australia."
"The girls are now genuinely discussing career options and how they can change their subject choices to align with engineering degrees," said Mr McCauley.
Throughout the competition, the team worked with their industry mentors from Saab Australia.
“The girls have genuinely done a fantastic job, they have taken most of the feedback from the state comp and incorporated that into their work for the National Competition”.
“The competition is gaining interest and currently we have 30 schools enrolled to enter next year’s competition” said Dr Myers.