STUDENTS from Marist College, Ashgrove, have topped the second division of the Opti-Minds science/engineering regional challenge, earning them a place at the state challenge on September 17 at the University of Queensland.
Ashgrove’s language and literature team also gained honours in their section and the social sciences team won the Spirit of Opti-Minds Award at the regional challenge at Indooroopilly State High School on July 29.
Opti-Minds is a creative problem-solving program for teams from Preschool to adult in language and literature, science/engineering and social sciences.
Each team was required to work together on a long-term challenge for up to six weeks without assistance from anyone outside the team.
Participants were encouraged to explore and experiment with ideas to produce the best possible solution to a set problem.
Year 10 student Jamie Campbell said the team had fun coming up with their solution, although it was challenging.
Tom Peters, from Year 9, said the team found there were a lot of ideas for both the team’s project and its explanation.
“I found that there was a lot of hard work for a difficult challenge, but with our perseverance and self-discipline we got it all done,” he said.
On challenge day they had 10 minutes in which to present their solution to a panel of judges and an audience and later participate in an unseen spontaneous challenge.
