While the winning teams at this years National Finals of the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge, Subs in Schools Technology Challenge and Land Rover 4X4 in Schools Technology Challenge were shared between NSW, SA, Qld & Tasmania it was the performance of the female high school students that took centre stage.
At the Gala Awards Ceremony for the largest STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) event ever held in Australia, girls from across Australia demonstrated that they are running on par with the boys when it comes to enjoying STEM, fast cars, off-roading and submarines.
The gala awards ceremony, attended by may dignitaries including Hon Karen Andrews MP, Assistant Minister for Science, came at the end of three days of intense competition held at Penrith Panthers Event Centre, Sydney.
Of the 37 teams from across the nation that participated in the finals, 20 included female students, three were all-girl teams and 12 were led by female Team Managers. It was thus no surprise when all of the all-girl teams made it on to the podium.
Andrew McCauley, Subs In Schools Project Manager, led the Saab team that created the manual which teaches students how to build a submarine step-by-step. As chairman of judges for this year's national final, McCauley who is also Saab Australia's Head of Discipline Software and Innovation at Saab Australia, spoke to ABC 891 Adelaide (listen from 45.00) about the Subs in Schools competition and the winners from Adelaide girls school St Peters.
McCauley said the Subs in School program is the most complex STEM high school program he has seen, with the primary focus to engag students in STEM while building remote control submarines.
"The submarines are about a metre long, 15 centimetres diameter and with about seven to eight channels of radio control. They can control fore and aft buoyancy, direction and pitch," McCauley said.
Speaking about the winning team from St Peters, McCauley said they had come so far, with some of them admitting they could barely use Excel before embarking on the program eighteen months ago.
"Today they're experts in Computer Aided Design (CAD), they are drawing parts using CAD tools before 3D printing the submarine parts," he said.
McCauley explained the key challenge to overcome in the competition was water ingress.
"So preventing the water from geting into the hull and affecting the electronics – they used a special putty that no one else had and theirs was the only sub that didn't suffer from this problem," McCauley said.
The results of the finals were as follows:
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 Professional Class Zero Barker College, Sydney NSW. |
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 Development Class Negative Filter Brighton Secondary School, Adelaide SA. |
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 National Champions SUBS in Schools Athena St. Peters Girls School, Adelaide SA. |
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 National Champions Wombat Warriors Pine Rivers State High School QLD. |