29 September 2023
On September 10 St Peter’s College had four teams compete at the Tournament of Minds State Finals at Adelaide High School. Tournament of Minds or TOM is a problem-solving competition for teams of students from both primary and secondary. The aim of the competition is to develop a diverse range of skills, creative and critical thinking, enterprise, time management and the discipline to work collaboratively in a challenging and competitive environment with minimal adult assistance.
There are four categories – Language Literature, Social Sciences, STEM, and The Arts. The challenges are released six weeks before competition day and teams are given strict criteria and a budget to meet. Boys gave up afternoons and weekends to prepare their solutions. Teams faced many hiccups along the way when things didn’t work or broke, small friendship fires and there were paint, prop and costume disasters galore.
On competition day there were 81 teams from 45 schools and over 500 students participating. All of our teams and students showed the character strengths of bravery and courage to present their solutions to a panel of judges. We received many positive comments on student’s ideas, team work and ingenuity for overcoming hurdles. Boys also received valuable feedback and tips for future competitions.
Whilst we didn’t place on the day the boys should be congratulated for their participation in the TOM program. I hope that you all decide to come back next year and do it again.
STEM
Facilitator: Mr Mudie
Aviv Choi
Joey Burchnall
Oscar Ma
Kevin Luo
Neal Shah
Nivaan Sardana
Tim Xu
Social Sciences
Facilitator: Ms Marchetti
Lucas Chen
Taha Noman
Angus Christo
Krish Grover
Ollie Burchnall
Caesar Wu
William Guo
Language Literature:
Facilitator: Mr Huebl
Eric Shah
Frank Wang
Jayden Chen
Shanthosh Kirushanthan
Luke Nguyen
Arts:
Facilitator: Mrs Cordon
Aryan Shilotri
Lucas Chen
Seth Attygalle
Nicholas Yang
James Young
Henry Chen
Sean Zhang
Mrs Michelle Cordon
Tournament of Minds Coordinator
