Students jumped into the ANSTO hackathon this National Science Week – and the winning entries are seriously impressive
If you’re big-time into STEM, chances are you’ve heard of – or thought about competing in – a hackathon.
And they aren’t just massive programming parties either! Some seriously awesome innovations have come out of them – including million dollar start-ups like Zapier, Talkdesk and Carousell.
The sprint-style events allow those with killer science, tech, engineering and maths smarts to collaborate on projects, with an end goal of creating a functioning, real-world product or solution.
Teams of participants often have a specific focus or theme. And the innovation possibilities? Literally endless!
Can you hack it?
Held annually during National Science Week, ANSTO’s latest hackathon encouraged participants to put their design thinking, science and tech skills to the test to come up with innovative ideas on the theme of Glass: More Than Meets the Eye.
Divided up into groups, the Year 7-11 students explored the many roles glass plays in our lives – from phone screens to optical fibres to glassware in labs – along with investigating glass as a part of our sustainable future.
With Careers with STEM co-founder Heather Catchpole part of the mentoring crew, we crashed the event to meet the young student programmers participating before they launch mega-famous start-ups.
“it’s important to train teen brains to know that trying out-of-the-box ideas in science can address some of the big challenges we face today,” she says. “The teams had so many cool ideas and the quality of work was really high.”
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Senior category joint-winners
If you’re looking for fun classroom content, free STEM education resources or just epic ideas for next year’s challenge, make sure you watch this year’s winning entries and runners-up.
Introducing Ponds Pride from The Ponds High School (NSW) and MMC Big Sisters from Mary MacKillop College (QLD) tied in the comp’s year 9-11 category:
MMC Big Sisters – Mary MacKillop College QLD from ANSTO on Vimeo.
Ponds Pride – The Ponds High School NSW from ANSTO on Vimeo.
Junior category winners
And for the younger kids? Bigger Brain Bosco from St John Bosco College (WA) took out the junior years 7-8 category.
Bigger Brain Bosco – St John Bosco College WA from ANSTO on Vimeo.
Inspired, much? Keep an eye on ANSTO’s events page for upcoming hackathons and STEM-focused events.
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