Emmaus Christian School makes national final in Science and Engineering Challenge

Emmaus Christian School will compete against seven other schools from around the country in the Science and Engineering Challenge, run by the University of Newcastle.

The school will head to Bendigo for Friday's national final after making it through the ACT regional and the NSW state finals.

During the challenge events, teams are given hands-on problems to solve, such as building a model of a tower that can resist an earthquake or figuring out how to connect towns on a map using the least amount of string.

In one challenge, the students created a bridge out of balsa wood that weighed less than 50 grams but was able to carry a car weighing more than 4kg.

Year 10 student Matthew Prior said he was sceptical about the competition but once he joined found it was an awesome experience.

"The types of things that we do, it's out of the ordinary and different," he said.

Matthew said it was good that their hard work in training and preparation had paid off.

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Fellow year 10 student Joanne Southam said it was good to see Emmaus Christian School getting recognition at a national level.

"Doing this shows that it doesn't really matter where you're coming from, where you're representing, you can still do pretty cool stuff," she said.

The school's major sponsor, CEA Technologies, showed some of the students around their head office in Fyshwick on Tuesday.

The company designs and manufactures radar technologies for the Australian Defence Force and also exports products to other countries.

Matthew said he felt like a "kid in a candy store" while looking through the various high-tech labs and workshops at the engineering firm. CEA Technologies chief executive Mark Foster said they wanted to work with schools and universities to feed into the company's future workforce.

"We're looking for engineers at the end of the day, or programmers or technicians or assemblers, a whole range of different technical skills that fit within the STEM group," Mr Foster said.

"And so for us to work with a group like Emmaus, it's really great to see young people developing and showing interest in science and then hopefully we'll see where that takes them."

The company employs about 550 people in Fyshwick, but this is set to expand to up to 800 after a new building is complete in coming months.

Mr Foster said the science and engineering challenge developed much-needed skills of teamwork and time management.

"They don't get a problem that they can go away and think about for six months. They have to think about it, they have to work out a solution and then they have to implement it. So it's very time constrained and frankly, that's how the real world works."

Emmaus science teacher Peter Willis said he was proud of the students for working together like a machine.

"What I really love about it is just seeing them working together, either on the day or in preparation, working as teams made up of year sevens, eights, nines, 10s all working together, mentoring each other with a real focus on problem solving, teamwork and attention to detail," Mr Willis said.

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