On Wednesday the 19th of May I had the opportunity to be a part of the All Saints’ team in the Science and Engineering Challenge. We spent the day at the Claremont Showgrounds in small teams competing against other schools in hands-on challenges. Our group was tasked with designing and making a water turbine and for the second rotation completing a problem-solving challenge where we had to connect different pegs on a pegboard with string, while following different rules. It was a great day and overall All Saints’ placed second.

This day was something dramatically out of my comfort zone, I haven’t done much that is hands-on like this, but I feel like I got a lot out of it. The relatively short timeframes of the activities meant we had to work quickly and efficiently which I haven’t always been great at since I can be prone to spending a large amount of time planning and perfecting. However we ended up working really well, it turns out I’m actually pretty good at problem solving on the go. I also discovered that building things hands-on might not be in my skillset, but I’m still glad I gave it a go. I don’t know that this day has convinced me that engineering is my true calling but it definitely let me explore some skills I didn’t know I had.