STEM at Wyvern is thriving because of the high levels of interest and passion inherent to our Wyvern boys. Proof of their commitment to STEM is the high number of boys who chose to submit and innovative device or scientific investigation in the Young Scientist Awards Competition. Two of our students took out top honours in the two age categories that Wyvern entered in the first category which is the innovative devices. In the Year 3 and 4 division, Harry Vohra was placed equal first for his self-made driverless robot car. Harry built this car to investigate if it could be used as an on-demand bus for people in a local community.  Part of this investigation was testing safety using lego blocks as obstacles to avoid and pre-programming set destinations. In the Year 5 and 6 division Anthony Gregoire was placed equal first as well with his uniquely designed and built, ‘Aqua Elevator’. His prototype showed how people in wheelchairs could be floated to the top of water slides in water parks so that they were not excluded from all the fun due to stairs. As both these boys are New South Wales state winners, the next step is the national BHPBSEA competition. The boys will also receive their NSW Young Scientist Awards at a formal presentation ceremony at the University of Wollongong on Wednesday, the 31st of October. Other participants in the Inventive, innovative device categories were: Benny Hunt, Angus Thompson and Patrick Jones in Year 5 who sped up the composting process to produce feed blocks for our drought stricken farmers. Also in Year 5, Rushabh Gandhi built his own drone from scratch and has invented a system for surveillance that takes away the need for fixed cameras, can be used for parking infringements, car break-ins, car accidents, fires and safe playground surveillance. He built a large city to demonstrate the effectiveness of the drone. In Year 6 Joshua Ibrahim designed a self-driving robot to get his granddad walking. It plays Sinatra and allows his granddad (who is on dialysis) to a walk on a set path for more exercise. Next weekend on the 14 -15 September the 12 boys who entered the Scientific Investigation category will have their entries judged and will receive feedback. We wish these boys all the best and a further update on what these boys investigated and how they achieved will appear in the next newsletter. A big thank you to the Year 11 senior students who have acted as mentors every Wednesday this term for our young scientists. We also thank the parents for their infinite patience and support of students in the competition. Please check out this website for further details http://www.youngscientist.com.au/

Lindsay Bosch
STEM Teacher