TEN students from Arndell Anglican College will be competing against three other schools to construct and fly a compressed air bottle rocket tomorrow at the Western Sydney Hub Semi Finals of the NSW Aeronautical Velocity Challenge.
The Semi Finals will take place at Western Sydney University, and the winning team will go on to the NSW Final on Friday, June 10.
The Arndell students, all in year 8, will be challenged to successfully launch a compressed air bottle rocket to achieve a maximum velocity whilst travelling a maximum distance.
The budding scientists make up two teams of five students - one novice team and one expert team - all lead by Arndell teacher, Jennifer Daly.
“It’s the first year for our school to run engineering as a mandatory component for year 8, which is really exciting for our school,” Ms Daly told the Gazette.
“The students have been preparing since term 1, week 5. All the preparation before the competition tomorrow is making and testing models, making finished shapes and redesigning. Tomorrow we can go with all our templates prepared but nothing constructed.
“You rebuild the rocket that was your most successful. So they’ll have three attempts tomorrow, and then the winner on the day will go on to the NSW Final.
“The planning is very important for getting the finished shape, the design and aerodynamics set, but it really can come down to what happens on the day and constructing it on the day.”
The Arndell team will be facing-off against teams from Toongabbie Christian School, Marsden High School and Haberfield Public School.
The Institute of Industrial Arts Teachers Education (IIATE) Aeronautical Velocity Challenge (AVC) is a STEM initiative focussing on addressing Australia’s shortage of scientists and engineers.
The AVC is run by a group of volunteer industrial arts teachers working together to excite and educate students in NSW to explore a career in STEM, Engineering, Design and Technology.
