Last week, our School was honoured to host the National Subs in Schools & F1s in Schools Competition, bringing together teams from all four corners of Australia to showcase their ingenuity and passion for STEM by completing team presentations, and interviews and putting our sub to the test through numerous tasks and challenges. The competition had lots of triumphs as well as setbacks and my team and I had lots of resilience and camaraderie, which made our journey unique and memorable.
My team was called the Narwhals, and the national team was composed of Nick Robertson, Sebastian Chen, Charlie Angus and myself. Having received a wild card from the State Competition, we, with the help of Mr Thamm, put in extra effort to make sure we were up to standards with the other teams. Setting up our trade display and testing our submarine on Monday filled us with great pride as we witnessed the finished results of months of hard work, dedication, and countless lunch times. Every detail of our booth was made to show our team’s innovation and creativity. It was a great experience to reunite with fellow teams from the State Competition and to meet new teams, exchanging stories, ideas, and well-wishes as we competed in the competition together.
However, as with any competition, our team was inevitably faced with many challenges. On Tuesday, our submarine encountered technical issues, causing our left motor to cease to function. Believing it was a motor over-use issue, our team looked past the setback and attempted to replace the malfunctioning motor by cutting it off and soldering a new motor on by the pool (do not try this at home). Despite our best efforts, the replacement motor failed to yield the desired results, leaving us unable to complete any of the water trials as we had intended.
Nevertheless, amidst our great disappointment, we moved on from the setback with the support of our friends from other teams and Mr Thamm and we learnt a very important lesson: when struggling with difficulties during challenging times, we must support each other to recover quickly carry through to achieve the best outcome. Thankfully, we had much more luck with the team presentations and interviews, impressing our judges with our work, which was very relieving to see as we have had terrible water trials.
In the end, my team and I didn’t win the competition as we had some incredibly talented rivals, but we were able to build some strong connections with other people from interstate and learn some very valuable lessons. We wouldn’t have known all these engineering, marketing and graphic design skills if we had not participated in the competition.
I would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all who have supported us on this journey – from my talented team members Seb Nick and Charlie who have sacrificed countless lunch times and worked tirelessly in the past year to improve our sub and trade display from the State Competition, our sponsors, Straight Smile Centre, SA Paediatrics & Newborns, Bunnings and SAAB whose generosity and mentoring made this experience possible. It has been an honour and a privilege to represent St Peter’s College on a national level, and we look forward to sharing more on our competition soon at Muster this week.
Our team is reminded that success is not solely defined by victories, but by the resilience, determination and teamwork with which we face challenges. Although we didn’t win the competition, we have already achieved something just as important – the strengthening of the bonds of our friendships, the lessons of perseverance, the new friends we have made and the memories of a long journey well-travelled.
Vinh (Year 10)
